Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
ElevenLabs' realtime STT offering — poor quality and slow for Arabic.
Fast Whisper inference on Groq hardware — poor Arabic quality with inconsistent latency.
Described as 'shit quality' in production testing. Not viable for Arabic.
Described as 'horrible' transcription quality for Arabic in production testing.
| Feature | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 | Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time streaming transcription | ✓ | ✗ |
| Multiple language support | ✓ | ✗ |
| LiveKit inference integration | ✓ | ✗ |
| Hardware-accelerated inference | ✗ | ✓ |
| Whisper model compatibility | ✗ | ✓ |
| Batch and real-time modes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 | Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✓ | ✗ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| API style | WebSocket streaming | REST (OpenAI-compatible) |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js | Python, Node.js |
Poor quality and poor latency for Arabic. Not recommended for any Arabic STT use case.
Groq's fast hardware can't compensate for Whisper's poor Arabic handling. Quality is unacceptable and latency is too inconsistent for voice agents.
Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo is faster with an average end-of-utterance delay of 284ms–3388ms, which is 1716ms faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2.
ElevenLabs Scribe v2 has a quality rating of 1/5 (Poor). Described as 'shit quality' in production testing. Not viable for Arabic.
Both providers are viable options. ElevenLabs Scribe v2: Poor quality and poor latency for Arabic. Not recommended for any Arabic STT use case. Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo: Groq's fast hardware can't compensate for Whisper's poor Arabic handling. Quality is unacceptable and latency is too inconsistent for voice agents.
ElevenLabs Scribe v2 starts at $5 per month (Includes STT credits). Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo starts at $0 per minute (Rate-limited free tier).