5 Alternatives & Competitors to Google Cloud Speech-to-Text

While Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is a powerful speech recognition tool. With it, developers can convert audio into text using robust neural network models in a simple API. A total of 120 languages and their variants are supported by the API, so you can serve your international user base. Call center audio can be translated, voice command and control can be enabled, and more. A live stream or recorded audio can be analyzed using Google’s machine learning technology.However, it is not the only option on the market. Here are five alternatives and competitors to consider:

1. Amazon Transcribe

At the top of the list is Amazon Transcribe. It is a speech recognition service that uses machine learning to convert spoken words into text and is the first of Google Cloud Speech-To-Text alternatives. It offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model and support for a variety of languages.

Features

• For searching and analyzing audio and video, this tool can handle both live and recorded recordings. Besides analyzing consumer calls (Amazon Transcribe Call Analytics), Amazon Transcribe also offers medical conversation analysis (Amazon Transcribe Medical Conversations).

• Audio can be transcribed in real-time or previously recorded using Amazon Transcribe. Live audio streams can be sent to the service via a secure connection, and text responses can be received.

• Using Amazon Transcribe, users can automatically identify the dominant language in audio sources and create transcriptions based on that information. In a media library with a variety of audio files, this is especially relevant. Moreover, this feature facilitates the categorization of media assets and ensures that podcasts and movies are correctly transcribed according to the majority of spoken language.

• In addition to multimedia video content, this program can handle phone calls as well. It is common for call centres to use low-fidelity audio for their phone calls, which Transcribe can accommodate.

Plans & Pricing

PROS/POSITIVE FEEDBACKS

• “By using Amazon transcribe, I am easily able to transcribe my words and language into coherent and understandable text. It allows for efficiency with time, instead of having to type. It is clear and concise.”
• “An effective automatic speech recognition service is Amazon Transcribe.”

CONS/NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS

• “The UX and UI could be improved on the AWS console.”
• “I would love to see Amazon Transcribe have its own section or its own page about how to make adjustments if you’re using it for accessibility.”

2. IBM Watson Speech to Text

IBM Watson Speech to Text is a cloud-based speech recognition service that offers real-time transcription. It converts written text into HD audio. With multiple voices and tones, this speech-to-text tool can handle a wide variety of files. In addition to that, supports over 80 languages and offers custom language models and acoustic models. Using IBM Watson Text-to-Speech, organizations can also provide immediate customer assistance through interactive voice response, or IVR.

Features

• Automatic transcriptions: In order to provide accurate speech-to-text recognition for your business, IBM Watson STT uses AI technology. To manage company processes efficiently, it provides real-time transcriptions and notes.
• Organized transcripts: IBM Watson STT allows you to store your company’s audio transcriptions in an organized fashion and monitor your support staff through this platform. IBM Watson STT allows you to evaluate the performance of your staff.
• Secure business information: This functionality allows you to access your transcriptions from any device with an internet connection thanks to IBM Watson STT, which stores your company’s documents on the cloud. Further, the application provides several security layers to prevent malware and hackers from accessing private corporate communications.

Plans & Pricing

PROS/POSITIVE FEEDBACKS

• Query Understanding. Natural Language Understanding
• Fast, smart and Accurate
• Customizable on our own data
• Highly pluggable with existing tools and infrastructure
• Cost Effective

CONS/NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS

• The merger of other IBM Watson products like speech and image recognition is required
• Payment plans for early startups
• Self-hosted on the premium version

3. Microsoft Azure Speech Services

As another alternative to Google’s speech-to-text, Microsoft Azure Speech Services offers speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and speech translation services. It supports over 50 languages and offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Utilizing open source and the cloud Spoken text is optimized utilizing streamlined algorithms by Microsoft Azure Text to Speech API. Even for people with no prior knowledge of these tools, the user interface is approachable and simple to use.

Features

• Real-Time Speech to Text: By integrating speech-to-text functionality with Microsoft Azure Speech Services, your apps will improve user experience. In addition to providing voice commands, your users can record talks, as well as examine logs related to call centres
• Text-to-Speech Smart Apps: Using Microsoft Azure Speech Services, you can convert text to speech using smart programs. This function enhances your consumers’ app-using experience in a similar way to the preceding one. The platform allows you to change the pitch, loudness, and speech quality of the converted speech.
• Neural Machine Translation: Microsoft Azure Speech Services offers speech translation services through its neural machine translation technology. Combined with its ability to recognize speech, this benefit allows your apps and this platform to recognize and translate real-life speech.
• To increase accessibility, Microsoft Azure Speech Services supports a wide range of devices. Whether you use an Android or iOS device, or a Windows computer, this platform guarantees that you will have access to its services at any time, anywhere.

Plans & Pricing

PROS/POSITIVE FEEDBACKS

• It implements accurate voice analysis which can be improved with customised speech models
• Custom speech models improve the accuracy of voice analysis
• To ensure the security of voice data, it can be run locally

CONS/NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS

• Difficult to set up

4. Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition

Nuance Dragon Speech Recognition is a desktop application that supports over 100 languages. It offers features such as voice command and control, dictation, and transcription. IWith up to 99% recognition accuracy, This Google speech-to-text alternative intelligently transcribes your spoken words into text 3x faster than typing. Launch and dictate, and you’re ready to go! The user interface is simple and intuitive, and no training is required to get started.

Features

• Playback feature: This fascinating improvement is exclusive to the Dragon software. It plays back entered text, just like it says it will. The fact that it does so in your voice is intriguing. It’s a useful feature to have because a human voice is much simpler to comprehend than a robotic or generic one.
• Fast: The company claims it can transcribe three times faster than a typist, but this does not account for time spent dictating punctuation and special characters. 
• Resources: Understand that real-time speech-to-text recognition and translation will inevitably require a lot of resources. Users should be prepared for that reality, particularly when combined with their machine learning features.

PLANS & PRICING

PROS/POSITIVE FEEDBACKS

• Excellent accuracy
• Deep vocabulary
• Strong range of use cases

CONS/NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS

• Outdated UI
• Expensive
• Weak recording transcription

5. CMU Sphinx

CMU Sphinx is an open-source speech recognition toolkit that supports several languages. It offers acoustic and language modeling tools, as well as tools for data collection and annotation. This happens to be a sufficient alternative to Google cloud speech-to-text should you choose to choose it.

Features

• Using cutting-edge speech recognition algorithms to recognize speech effectively. Flexible design, a focus on developing practical applications rather than research, and tools made expressly for low-resource systems are all characteristics of CMUSphinx tools.
• The ability to construct models for other languages and support a variety of languages, including US English, UK English, French, Mandarin, German, Dutch, and Russian.
• A license akin to BSD that permits commercial distribution
• Financial backing

PLANS & PRICING

PROS/POSITIVE FEEDBACKS

• More accurate.
• Get online speech-to-text solutions.
• It is very fast with small dictionaries and keywords search.
• Comparatively, this speech recognition library is easier to use.

CONS/NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS

•  It provides only a few supported languages.

Conclusion

In the end, Google Cloud Speech-to-Text is a good service with many potential applications. However, it’s not the only game in town and there are several alternatives that may fit your needs better. We’ve outlined five of these alternatives for you to explore so you can make an informed decision about which service is best for you. Have you tried any of these services? What was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.