Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
Mistral's speech model — completely non-functional for Arabic.
Full Whisper v3 on Groq — same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant.
Produced zero transcriptions for Arabic audio. Tested with and without explicit language parameter.
Described as 'still shit' in production testing. Non-turbo version did not improve quality.
| Feature | Mistral Voxtral Mini | Groq Whisper Large v3 |
|---|---|---|
| Multilingual speech recognition (claimed) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Audio understanding | ✓ | ✗ |
| Hardware-accelerated inference | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full Whisper Large v3 model | ✗ | ✓ |
| Batch and real-time modes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | Mistral Voxtral Mini | Groq Whisper Large v3 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✗ | ✗ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✗ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| API style | REST | REST (OpenAI-compatible) |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js | Python, Node.js |
Does not work for Arabic at all. Zero transcriptions produced in testing despite claiming multilingual support.
Same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant. Whisper models on Groq are not viable for Arabic speech recognition.
Mistral Voxtral Mini has a quality rating of 1/5 (Non-functional). Produced zero transcriptions for Arabic audio. Tested with and without explicit language parameter.
Both providers are viable options. Mistral Voxtral Mini: Does not work for Arabic at all. Zero transcriptions produced in testing despite claiming multilingual support. Groq Whisper Large v3: Same poor Arabic quality as the turbo variant. Whisper models on Groq are not viable for Arabic speech recognition.
Mistral Voxtral Mini starts at Usage-based per request (Mistral API pricing). Groq Whisper Large v3 starts at $0 per minute (Rate-limited free tier).