Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
Fast Whisper inference on Groq hardware — poor Arabic quality with inconsistent latency.
Full Whisper v3 on Groq — same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant.
Described as 'horrible' transcription quality for Arabic in production testing.
Described as 'still shit' in production testing. Non-turbo version did not improve quality.
| Feature | Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo | Groq Whisper Large v3 |
|---|---|---|
| Hardware-accelerated inference | ✓ | ✓ |
| Whisper model compatibility | ✓ | ✗ |
| Batch and real-time modes | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full Whisper Large v3 model | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo | Groq Whisper Large v3 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✗ | ✗ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| API style | REST (OpenAI-compatible) | REST (OpenAI-compatible) |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js | Python, Node.js |
Groq's fast hardware can't compensate for Whisper's poor Arabic handling. Quality is unacceptable and latency is too inconsistent for voice agents.
Same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant. Whisper models on Groq are not viable for Arabic speech recognition.
Groq Whisper Large v3 is faster with an average end-of-utterance delay of 32ms–3494ms, which is 252ms faster than Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo.
Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo has a quality rating of 1/5 (Poor). Described as 'horrible' transcription quality for Arabic in production testing.
Both providers are viable options. 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. Groq Whisper Large v3: Same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant. Whisper models on Groq are not viable for Arabic speech recognition.
Groq Whisper Large v3 Turbo starts at $0 per minute (Rate-limited free tier). Groq Whisper Large v3 starts at $0 per minute (Rate-limited free tier).