4 ms·

According to the OpenASR Leaderboard [1], looks like Parakeet V2/V3 and Canary-Qwen (a Qwen finetune) handily beat Moonshine. All 3 models are open, but Parakee

According to the OpenASR Leaderboard [1], looks like Parakeet V2/V3 and Canary-Qwen (a Qwen finetune) handily beat Moonshine. All 3 models are open, but Parakeet is the smallest of the 3. I use Parakeet V3 with Handy and it works great locally for me. [1]: https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard

reitzensteinm 8mo ago
Parakeet V3 is over twice the parameter count of Moonshine Medium (600m vs 245m), so it's not an apples to apples comparison. I'm actually a little surprised they haven't added model size to that chart.
- agentifysh 8mo ago
  So I'm kinda new to this whole parakeet and moonshine stuff, and I'm able to run parakeet on a low end CPU without issues, so I'm curious as to how much that extra savings on parameters is actually gonna translate. Oh and I type this in handy with just my voice and parakeet version three, which is absolutely crazy.
- bytesandbits 8mo ago
  parakeet v3 has a much better RTFx than moonshine, it's not just about parameter numbers. Runs faster. https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard
  - regularfry 8mo ago
    It is about the parameter numbers if what you care about is edge devices with limited RAM. Beyond a certain size your model just doesn't fit, it doesn't matter how good it is - you still can't run it.
    - bytesandbits 8mo ago
      I am not sure what "edge" device you want to run this on, but you can compress parakeet to under 500MB on RAM / disk with dynamic quants on-the-fly dequantization (GGUF or CoreML centroid palettization style). And retain essentially almost all accuracy. And just to be clear, 500MB is even enough for a raspberry Pi. Then your problem is not memory, is FLOPS. It might run real-time in a RPi 5, since it has around 50 GFLOPS of FP32, i.e. 100 GFLOPS of FP16. So about 20-50 times less than a modern iPhone. I don't think it will be able to keep it real time, TBF, but close. regardless, this model with such quantization strategy runs real time at +10x real-time factor even in 6-year old iPhones (which you can acquire for under $200) and offline at a reasonable speed, essentially anywhere. You get the best of both worlds: the accuracy of a whisper transformer at the speed and footprint of a small model.
  - SyneRyder 8mo ago
    That was my experience when I tried Moonshine against Parakeet v3 via Handy. Moonshine was noticeably slower on my 2018-era Intel i7 PC, and didn't seem as accurate either. I'm glad it exists, and I like the smaller size on disk (and presumably RAM too). But for my purposes with Handy I think I need the extra speed and accuracy Parakeet v3 is giving me.
theologic 8mo ago
By the way, I've been using a Whisper model, specifically WhisperX, to do all my work, and for whatever reason I just simply was not familiar with the Handy app. I've now downloaded and used it, and what a great suggestion. Thank you for putting it here, along with the direct link to the leaderboard. I can tell that this is now definitely going to be my go-to model and app on all my clients.
- jasonjmcghee 8mo ago
  I have to ask- I see this handy app running on Mac and you hold a key down and then it doesn't show until seemingly a while later. The one built in is much faster, and you only have to toggle it on. Are these so much more accurate? I definitely have to correct stuff, but pretty good experience. Also use speech to text on my iphone which seems to be the same accuracy.
syntaxing 8mo ago
How much VRAM does parakeet take for you? For some reason it takes 4GB+ for me using the onyx version even though it’s 600M parameters
- Leftium 8mo ago
  There are different versions of the parakeet model. The 8-bit quantized version doesn't use as many bits. Thus it saves space (only using about 600MB) while maintaining about the same level of accuracy. I think most apps that use Parakeet tend to use this version of the model? See if Parakeet (Nemotron) still uses 4GB+ with my implementation: https://rift-transcription.vercel.app/local-setup https://rift-transcription.vercel.app/local-setup
tomr75 8mo ago
why V3 over V2 (assuming English only)?
tuananh 8mo ago
Handy is amazing. Super quality app.
- agentifysh 8mo ago
  It really is. It's kinda ridiculous that it's free.
  - alfiedotwtf 8mo ago
    Are voice or a transcript sent back to their servers? If so, you may be the product
    - yorwba 8mo ago
      No, it's just somebody's open source project: https://github.com/cjpais/handy https://github.com/cjpais/handy
  - tuananh 8mo ago
    I'm quite surprise to see that level of polish from an open-source project.
agentifysh 8mo ago
hmmm looks like assembyAI is still unbeatable here in terms of cost/performance unless im mistaken edit: holy shit parakeet is good.... Moonshine impressive too and it is half the param Now if only there was something just as quick as Parakeet v3 for TTS ! Then I can talk to codex all day long!!!
- remuskaos 8mo ago
  Parakeet doesn't require a GPU. I'm handily running it on my Ubuntu Linux laptop.
  - agentifysh 8mo ago
    you are right i just downloaded it on handy and its working i can't believe it i was using assmeblyAI but this is fast and accurate and offline wtf!
    - remuskaos 8mo ago
      parakeet is amazing, it has completely ousted whisper for me. On Linux, both handy.computer and epicenter Whispering (using parakeet of course) work incredibly well for set-and-forget STT. I use it constantly to write messages on Slack/Teams, do debate with claude code etc. Both have minor bugs, but I can easily accept those, these apps being FOSS and all. On Mac, I've been using VoiceInk and it's even better. VoiceInk (and MacWhisper too, IIRC) use the neural engine and the delay between dictation and appearance of the typed text is almost imperceptible.
  - namibj 8mo ago
    I'm looking to switch from feeding the default android "recorder" app's .WAV into Gemini 3 Pro (via the app) with (usually just) a `Transcribe this please:` prompt; content is usually German voice instructions/explanation for how to do/approach some sysadmin stuff; there does tend to be some amount of interjecting (primarily for clarifications(-posing/-requesting)) by me to resolve ambiguity as early as possible/practical. If e.g. parakeet can be run on my phone in real time showing the transcript live: - with latency low enough to be "comfortable enough" for the instructor to keep an eye on and approve the transcribed instructions [not necessarily every word of the transcript, i.e., a commanded "edit" doesn't need to be applied in the outcome as long as it's nature is otherwise clear enough to not add meaningful amounts of ambiguity to the final "written" instructions] by glancing at the screen while dictating the explanation (and blurting out any transcription complaints as soon as that's possible without breaking one's own string-of-thought or spoken grammar too much) , I'd very happily switch to that approach instead of what I was doing. Bonus if there's a no-bulky-or-expensive-hardware way to accommodate us both speaking over each other so I won't have to _interrupt_ his speaking just to put a clarifying comment (on what he just said) in the transcript for him to see and sign off, where the at least "only" briefly interrupts his thoughts right while he actually reads my transcribed words (he doesn't have to hear them, and it's better if he won't; I can probably get him to put on earmuffs to not hear me louder than he hears his thoughts, and a sufficiently-smoothed SNR meter for specifically his voice should take care him regulating his volume while the earmuffs mute it and I occasionally talk over him)...
kardaj 8mo ago
I'm building a local-first transcription iOS app and have been on Whisper Medium, switching to Parakeet V3 based on this. One note for anyone using Handy with codex-cli on macOS: the default "Option + Space" shortcut inserts spaces mid-speech. "Left Ctrl + Fn" works cleanly instead. I'm curious to know which shortcuts you're using.
- bn-usd-mistake 8mo ago
  I am looking for such an app. Main use case is transcribing voice notes received on Signal while preserving privacy. Please post when you launch :)
d4rkp4ttern 8mo ago
Was a big fan of Handy until I found Hex, which, incredibly, has even faster transcription (with Parakeet V3), it’s MacOS only: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex
- Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
  I tried this out but the brew command errors out saying it only works on macOS versions older than Sequoia. That's unfortunate. I think I can update my version but I have heard some bad things about performance from the newer update from my elder brother.
  - d4rkp4ttern 8mo ago
    works fine on my MacOS w Tahoe
  - ValentineC 8mo ago
    > I tried this out but the brew command errors out saying it only works on macOS versions older than Sequoia. Newer than Sequoia, you mean? The brew recipe [1] says macOS >= 15. Anyway, I'm on Sequoia — it's mostly better than Ventura, which was what my M2 MacBook Pro came with. I'm holding off upgrading to Tahoe (macOS 26), hoping they fix liquid glAss. [1] https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/kitlangton-hex https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/kitlangton-hex
Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
To this comment and all the other comments talking about handy below this comment. I tried handy right now and it's super amazing. I'm speaking this from Handy. This is so cool, man. And handy even takes care of all the punctuation, which is really nice. Thanks a lot for suggesting it to me. I actually wanted something like this, and I was using something like Google Docs, and it required me to use Chrome to get the speech to text version, and I actually ended up using Orion for that because Orion can actually work as a Chrome for some reason while still having both Firefox and Chrome extension support. So and I had it installed, but yeah. This is really amazing and actually a sort of lifesaver actually, so thanks a lot, man. Now I can actually just speak and this can convert this to text without having to go through any non-local model or Google Docs or whatever anything else. Why is this so good man? It's so good man, I actually now am thinking that I had like fully maxed out my typing speed to like hundred-120. But like this can actually write it faster. you know it's pretty amazing actually. Have a nice day, or as I abbreviate it, HAND, smiley face. :D

reitzensteinm 8mo ago

Parakeet V3 is over twice the parameter count of Moonshine Medium (600m vs 245m), so it's not an apples to apples comparison. I'm actually a little surprised they haven't added model size to that chart.

agentifysh 8mo ago
So I'm kinda new to this whole parakeet and moonshine stuff, and I'm able to run parakeet on a low end CPU without issues, so I'm curious as to how much that extra savings on parameters is actually gonna translate. Oh and I type this in handy with just my voice and parakeet version three, which is absolutely crazy.
bytesandbits 8mo ago
parakeet v3 has a much better RTFx than moonshine, it's not just about parameter numbers. Runs faster. https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard https://huggingface.co/spaces/hf-audio/open_asr_leaderboard
- regularfry 8mo ago
  It is about the parameter numbers if what you care about is edge devices with limited RAM. Beyond a certain size your model just doesn't fit, it doesn't matter how good it is - you still can't run it.
  - bytesandbits 8mo ago
    I am not sure what "edge" device you want to run this on, but you can compress parakeet to under 500MB on RAM / disk with dynamic quants on-the-fly dequantization (GGUF or CoreML centroid palettization style). And retain essentially almost all accuracy. And just to be clear, 500MB is even enough for a raspberry Pi. Then your problem is not memory, is FLOPS. It might run real-time in a RPi 5, since it has around 50 GFLOPS of FP32, i.e. 100 GFLOPS of FP16. So about 20-50 times less than a modern iPhone. I don't think it will be able to keep it real time, TBF, but close. regardless, this model with such quantization strategy runs real time at +10x real-time factor even in 6-year old iPhones (which you can acquire for under $200) and offline at a reasonable speed, essentially anywhere. You get the best of both worlds: the accuracy of a whisper transformer at the speed and footprint of a small model.
- SyneRyder 8mo ago
  That was my experience when I tried Moonshine against Parakeet v3 via Handy. Moonshine was noticeably slower on my 2018-era Intel i7 PC, and didn't seem as accurate either. I'm glad it exists, and I like the smaller size on disk (and presumably RAM too). But for my purposes with Handy I think I need the extra speed and accuracy Parakeet v3 is giving me.

theologic 8mo ago

By the way, I've been using a Whisper model, specifically WhisperX, to do all my work, and for whatever reason I just simply was not familiar with the Handy app. I've now downloaded and used it, and what a great suggestion. Thank you for putting it here, along with the direct link to the leaderboard. I can tell that this is now definitely going to be my go-to model and app on all my clients.

jasonjmcghee 8mo ago
I have to ask- I see this handy app running on Mac and you hold a key down and then it doesn't show until seemingly a while later. The one built in is much faster, and you only have to toggle it on. Are these so much more accurate? I definitely have to correct stuff, but pretty good experience. Also use speech to text on my iphone which seems to be the same accuracy.

syntaxing 8mo ago

How much VRAM does parakeet take for you? For some reason it takes 4GB+ for me using the onyx version even though it’s 600M parameters

Leftium 8mo ago
There are different versions of the parakeet model. The 8-bit quantized version doesn't use as many bits. Thus it saves space (only using about 600MB) while maintaining about the same level of accuracy. I think most apps that use Parakeet tend to use this version of the model? See if Parakeet (Nemotron) still uses 4GB+ with my implementation: https://rift-transcription.vercel.app/local-setup https://rift-transcription.vercel.app/local-setup

tomr75 8mo ago

why V3 over V2 (assuming English only)?

tuananh 8mo ago

Handy is amazing. Super quality app.

agentifysh 8mo ago
It really is. It's kinda ridiculous that it's free.
- alfiedotwtf 8mo ago
  Are voice or a transcript sent back to their servers? If so, you may be the product
  - yorwba 8mo ago
    No, it's just somebody's open source project: https://github.com/cjpais/handy https://github.com/cjpais/handy
- tuananh 8mo ago
  I'm quite surprise to see that level of polish from an open-source project.

agentifysh 8mo ago

hmmm looks like assembyAI is still unbeatable here in terms of cost/performance unless im mistaken edit: holy shit parakeet is good.... Moonshine impressive too and it is half the param Now if only there was something just as quick as Parakeet v3 for TTS ! Then I can talk to codex all day long!!!

remuskaos 8mo ago
Parakeet doesn't require a GPU. I'm handily running it on my Ubuntu Linux laptop.
- agentifysh 8mo ago
  you are right i just downloaded it on handy and its working i can't believe it i was using assmeblyAI but this is fast and accurate and offline wtf!
  - remuskaos 8mo ago
    parakeet is amazing, it has completely ousted whisper for me. On Linux, both handy.computer and epicenter Whispering (using parakeet of course) work incredibly well for set-and-forget STT. I use it constantly to write messages on Slack/Teams, do debate with claude code etc. Both have minor bugs, but I can easily accept those, these apps being FOSS and all. On Mac, I've been using VoiceInk and it's even better. VoiceInk (and MacWhisper too, IIRC) use the neural engine and the delay between dictation and appearance of the typed text is almost imperceptible.
- namibj 8mo ago
  I'm looking to switch from feeding the default android "recorder" app's .WAV into Gemini 3 Pro (via the app) with (usually just) a `Transcribe this please:` prompt; content is usually German voice instructions/explanation for how to do/approach some sysadmin stuff; there does tend to be some amount of interjecting (primarily for clarifications(-posing/-requesting)) by me to resolve ambiguity as early as possible/practical. If e.g. parakeet can be run on my phone in real time showing the transcript live: - with latency low enough to be "comfortable enough" for the instructor to keep an eye on and approve the transcribed instructions [not necessarily every word of the transcript, i.e., a commanded "edit" doesn't need to be applied in the outcome as long as it's nature is otherwise clear enough to not add meaningful amounts of ambiguity to the final "written" instructions] by glancing at the screen while dictating the explanation (and blurting out any transcription complaints as soon as that's possible without breaking one's own string-of-thought or spoken grammar too much) , I'd very happily switch to that approach instead of what I was doing. Bonus if there's a no-bulky-or-expensive-hardware way to accommodate us both speaking over each other so I won't have to _interrupt_ his speaking just to put a clarifying comment (on what he just said) in the transcript for him to see and sign off, where the at least "only" briefly interrupts his thoughts right while he actually reads my transcribed words (he doesn't have to hear them, and it's better if he won't; I can probably get him to put on earmuffs to not hear me louder than he hears his thoughts, and a sufficiently-smoothed SNR meter for specifically his voice should take care him regulating his volume while the earmuffs mute it and I occasionally talk over him)...

kardaj 8mo ago

I'm building a local-first transcription iOS app and have been on Whisper Medium, switching to Parakeet V3 based on this. One note for anyone using Handy with codex-cli on macOS: the default "Option + Space" shortcut inserts spaces mid-speech. "Left Ctrl + Fn" works cleanly instead. I'm curious to know which shortcuts you're using.

bn-usd-mistake 8mo ago
I am looking for such an app. Main use case is transcribing voice notes received on Signal while preserving privacy. Please post when you launch :)

d4rkp4ttern 8mo ago

Was a big fan of Handy until I found Hex, which, incredibly, has even faster transcription (with Parakeet V3), it’s MacOS only: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex

Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago
I tried this out but the brew command errors out saying it only works on macOS versions older than Sequoia. That's unfortunate. I think I can update my version but I have heard some bad things about performance from the newer update from my elder brother.
- d4rkp4ttern 8mo ago
  works fine on my MacOS w Tahoe
- ValentineC 8mo ago
  > I tried this out but the brew command errors out saying it only works on macOS versions older than Sequoia. Newer than Sequoia, you mean? The brew recipe [1] says macOS >= 15. Anyway, I'm on Sequoia — it's mostly better than Ventura, which was what my M2 MacBook Pro came with. I'm holding off upgrading to Tahoe (macOS 26), hoping they fix liquid glAss. [1] https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/kitlangton-hex https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/kitlangton-hex

Imustaskforhelp 8mo ago

To this comment and all the other comments talking about handy below this comment. I tried handy right now and it's super amazing. I'm speaking this from Handy. This is so cool, man. And handy even takes care of all the punctuation, which is really nice. Thanks a lot for suggesting it to me. I actually wanted something like this, and I was using something like Google Docs, and it required me to use Chrome to get the speech to text version, and I actually ended up using Orion for that because Orion can actually work as a Chrome for some reason while still having both Firefox and Chrome extension support. So and I had it installed, but yeah. This is really amazing and actually a sort of lifesaver actually, so thanks a lot, man. Now I can actually just speak and this can convert this to text without having to go through any non-local model or Google Docs or whatever anything else. Why is this so good man? It's so good man, I actually now am thinking that I had like fully maxed out my typing speed to like hundred-120. But like this can actually write it faster. you know it's pretty amazing actually. Have a nice day, or as I abbreviate it, HAND, smiley face. :D