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