No. 19 of 28 ·Speech Recognition Software

SpeechRecognition

Windows · Mac · Linux · Self-hosted · API

Freedom report

Two barsScore 5.3

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely3 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedThinly documented

SpeechRecognition is ranked #19 of 28 in speech recognition software on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, macOS, Self-hosted, Windows. There is a free plan.

SpeechRecognition plans and pricing

All plans

Free/open-source library Free Python library · Speech recognition through supported engines and APIs · Optional dependencies vary by feature github.com · 5 Oct 2026

Compared on speech recognition software

Free plan: Yes
Offline recognition: Yes
API access: Yes
Deployment: hybrid

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The record

Purpose: SpeechRecognition is a Python library for speech recognition with support for several engines and APIs, online and offline.
Recognition engines: Supported options include CMU Sphinx, Google Speech Recognition, Google Cloud Speech API, Wit.ai, Microsoft Azure Speech, Houndify, IBM Speech to Text, Vosk, Whisper, Groq Whisper, and Cohere Transcribe.
Offline operation: The README identifies CMU Sphinx, Snowboy Hotword Detection, Vosk, and Whisper as working offline.
Input and output: Examples cover recognizing microphone input, transcribing audio files, saving audio data, extended results, ambient-noise calibration, and background microphone listening.
Installation: The README gives `pip install SpeechRecognition` as the easiest installation method and also describes installing from the PyPI source distribution.
Python requirement: Python 3.10 or later is required to use the library.
Microphone requirement: PyAudio 0.2.11 or later is required only for microphone input; the rest of the library works without it.
Self-hosted endpoints: The OpenAI transcription recognizer supports OpenAI-compatible self-hosted endpoints such as vLLM and Ollama.
Cloud credentials: The README requires local Google credentials for Google Cloud Speech use and environment API keys for OpenAI and Groq recognizers.
Google API limit: The README says the library supports Google Cloud Speech API V1 and does not support V2.
License: The library is available under the 3-clause BSD license; included FLAC binaries are GPLv2-licensed.
Support: The project asks users to report bugs and suggestions through its GitHub issue tracker.
Founded: 2014
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Speech Recognition Software in 2026#19 of 28

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Sources

github.com/Uberi/speech_recognition· checked 5 Oct 2026