Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
High-quality Arabic STT from Google Cloud, but with significant latency.
Best-in-class Arabic STT with ultra-low latency. Production-tested winner.
High quality transcription. Broad Arabic dialect support through ar-XA language code.
Accurately captures Gulf Arabic phrases. No user repetitions needed in production calls.
| Feature | Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3 | Deepgram Nova-3 |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time streaming transcription | ✓ | ✓ |
| 120+ language support | ✓ | ✗ |
| Automatic punctuation | ✓ | ✗ |
| Word-level timestamps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Speaker diarization | ✓ | ✗ |
| Custom vocabulary | ✓ | ✓ |
| Medical and telephony models | ✓ | ✗ |
| Automatic language detection | ✗ | ✓ |
| Endpointing / end-of-utterance detection | ✗ | ✓ |
| Punctuation and formatting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multichannel support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3 | Deepgram Nova-3 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✓ | ✓ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| API style | gRPC streaming + REST | WebSocket streaming + REST |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js, Go, Java, C#, Ruby, PHP | Python, Node.js, Go, .NET, Rust |
Excellent quality but too slow for real-time voice agents. Best suited for batch transcription or applications where latency isn't critical.
The clear winner for Arabic STT. Deepgram Nova-3 delivers excellent quality at 424ms average EOU delay — fast enough for real-time voice agents.
Deepgram Nova-3 is faster with an average end-of-utterance delay of 424ms, which is 1952ms faster than Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3.
Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3 has a quality rating of 5/5 (Excellent). High quality transcription. Broad Arabic dialect support through ar-XA language code.
Deepgram Nova-3 is recommended for production use. The clear winner for Arabic STT. Deepgram Nova-3 delivers excellent quality at 424ms average EOU delay — fast enough for real-time voice agents.
Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3 starts at $0.016 per 15 seconds (Chirp 3 model). Deepgram Nova-3 starts at $0.0043 per minute (Nova-3 streaming).