Production TestedSpeech-to-Text

Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3

High-quality Arabic STT from Google Cloud, but with significant latency.

Acceptable

Excellent quality but too slow for real-time voice agents. Best suited for batch transcription or applications where latency isn't critical.

Google Cloud's Chirp 3 model provides excellent Arabic transcription quality, serving as the baseline for our production testing. However, its 2.4-second average EOU delay makes it too slow for real-time voice agent applications.

Benchmarks

Latency

Avg EOU Delay2376ms
Best Case2000ms
Worst Case3000ms
Full Turn Time9000ms–10000ms

Quality

RatingExcellent
Word Error Rate28.8%
Arabic Dialect Support
Gulf ArabicMSAEgyptianLevantine

High quality transcription. Broad Arabic dialect support through ar-XA language code.

Features

Real-time streaming transcription
120+ language support
Automatic punctuation
Word-level timestamps
Speaker diarization
Custom vocabulary
Medical and telephony models
StreamingLiveKit Plugin

PricingFree Tier Available

PlanPriceUnit
Standard$0.016per 15 seconds

Integration

SDKs
PythonNode.jsGoJavaC#RubyPHP
API Style

gRPC streaming + REST

Documentation

Verdict

Excellent quality but too slow for real-time voice agents. Best suited for batch transcription or applications where latency isn't critical.

Best For
Batch transcriptionMulti-dialect Arabic supportEnterprise compliance

Pros

  • Excellent transcription quality
  • Broadest Arabic dialect support
  • Enterprise-grade reliability
  • Extensive SDK ecosystem

Cons

  • 2.4s average EOU delay — too slow for voice agents
  • Higher pricing than competitors
  • Complex GCP setup required
Visit Google Cloud STT — Chirp 3

Go to https://cloud.google.com/speech-to-text

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