Deepgram alternatives: 12 tools compared (October 2026)

Descript is a video and audio editor for marketing, sales and communications teams and podcasters that turns recordings into a transcript and lets users edit video by editing text, with AI tools for sound, clips and translation.

Key functions

• Edits video through the automatically created transcript
• Underlord acts as an AI co-editor for editing tasks
• Studio Sound removes background noise and enhances voices

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• States no EU hosting option; Deepgram has one.
• Different pricing model: freemium instead of usage-based.

Check before buying: Descript may use projects to improve its service unless the Share Data setting is turned off, so set this before uploading internal recordings. Data is stored in the United States, and the privacy policy does not link a data processing agreement; request one. Custom avatars and voice features need consent from the person shown.

ElevenLabs is a voice AI platform that turns text into speech, clones voices, transcribes recordings and dubs audio and video. It serves individual creators through to enterprises, both in a web app and through developer APIs.

Key functions

• Text to speech in more than 70 languages (vendor figure)
• Instant Voice Cloning from a few minutes of audio, Professional Voice Cloning from 30 minutes of recordings
• Scribe transcribes more than 90 languages with speaker labels and word-level timestamps

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• Different pricing model: freemium instead of usage-based.
• Strong in the same markets as Deepgram: United States.

Check before buying: Customer data is stored in the US by default, and EU, India or Singapore residency is limited to Enterprise contracts. Cloning another person's voice requires that person's explicit consent; the vendor requires technical verification for Professional Voice Cloning, blocks high-risk voices and publishes an AI speech classifier. Credits are consumed by usage, so estimate monthly volumes before choosing a plan. Healthcare use needs a Business Associate Agreement under HIPAA.

llamafile packages an open language model and its runtime into one executable file that starts without installation on most operating systems, which makes local AI easy to hand out to colleagues or run on locked-down machines.

Key functions

• Runs language models as a single file on most operating systems and CPU architectures
• Server with an OpenAI-compatible interface
• Whisperfile for speech transcription and translation

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• Strong in the same markets as Deepgram: United States.

Check before buying: Executable files that contain a model are large and can trigger security scanners, so agree with IT security how they are approved and distributed. The code is free, but each model keeps its own license. According to the project documentation, version 0.10 still lacks some earlier features, such as GPU support on Windows and image generation with Stable Diffusion, so test existing workflows before upgrading.

The VibeVoice Technical Report from Microsoft describes a model that generates long, multi-speaker conversational speech. Microsoft has since removed that model's code from the repository, which now offers long-form and streaming speech recognition and a lightweight real-time text-to-speech model.

Key functions

• Describes speech synthesis up to 90 minutes with up to four speakers (next-token diffusion); Microsoft removed the TTS code from the repository in September 2025 because of misuse, and VibeVoice-TTS-1.5B is disabled
• Continuous speech tokenizer at 7.5 Hz, 80 times more compression than Encodec according to the report
• VibeVoice-ASR transcribes up to 60 minutes of audio in one pass with speakers and timestamps

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• Strong in the same markets as Deepgram: United States.

Check before buying: Microsoft calls VibeVoice a research framework and does not recommend commercial or real-world use without further testing. Synthetic voices can be misused, so set internal rules for consent and labeling of generated audio. Transcripts of meetings contain personal data, so decide where the model runs and how long outputs are kept.

Whisper is OpenAI's open source speech recognition model and Python package. Teams with technical staff run it on their own hardware to transcribe recordings in many languages, translate speech into English and detect the spoken language.

Key functions

• Multilingual speech recognition from audio files
• Translation of spoken language into English
• Automatic identification of the spoken language

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• Strong in the same markets as Deepgram: United States.

Check before buying: Whisper is a code repository, not a managed service: your IT team installs, secures and updates it, and larger models need a GPU. There is no vendor support, SLA or data processing agreement, but data stays wherever you run it. Accuracy varies widely by language according to the README, so test with your own recordings. The MIT license permits commercial use.

Amberscript is a European speech-to-text service that turns audio and video into transcripts and subtitles, either fully by machine or checked by human editors, for media, education, public sector and healthcare.

Key functions

• Machine transcription in minutes in more than 90 languages
• Machine subtitles generated straight from the audio track
• Amber Notes creates notes from meetings

Compared with Deepgram

• Headquartered in Netherlands, Deepgram in United States.
• Different pricing model: flat fee instead of usage-based.
• Strongest elsewhere: Netherlands.

Check before buying: The pricing page lists machine transcription subscriptions from EUR 19 a month and human transcription from EUR 1.85 per minute; compare both options for your audio volume. Uploaded files are deleted automatically after six months according to the privacy policy; plan your own archive. Single sign-on requires an Enterprise contract. Ask for the data processing agreement, which Amberscript signs on request according to its privacy policy.

Gladia is a speech-to-text API for meeting assistants, contact center software and voice agents. It transcribes recorded and live audio in more than 100 languages and enriches the transcript for downstream systems.

Key functions

• Transcription of recordings and live audio in 100+ languages with automatic language detection
• Speaker diarization and word-level timestamps
• Transcript enrichment pushed to a CRM or database via webhooks

Compared with Deepgram

• Headquartered in France, Deepgram in United States.
• Starts higher: from $0.61 usage-based, Deepgram from $0.00 usage-based.
• Strongest elsewhere: France.

Check before buying: Check the training setting for your plan: on Starter, model training is not switched off by default, while Growth and Enterprise opt out. Ask where your data will be hosted if you need a region outside France, and request the data processing terms. The security page lists SOC 2 Type II and says ISO 27001 is in progress.

Happy Scribe turns audio and video into transcripts, subtitles and translations with AI and records business meetings, for media, communications, legal and research teams that need text from spoken content.

Key functions

• AI subtitles in more than 150 languages
• AI translation of transcripts and subtitles into more than 80 languages
• AI notetaker for Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom

Compared with Deepgram

• Has a free plan; Deepgram does not.
• Headquartered in Ireland, Deepgram in United States.
• Different pricing model: flat fee instead of usage-based.

Check before buying: Data is hosted in the EU, and the trust center is the place to request the subprocessor list and compliance documents. Model training on your content only happens if you opt in. The meeting notetaker records participants, so inform them and, in Germany, involve the works council where recordings could monitor employees. SSO and SAML are limited to Enterprise. Minutes beyond the plan allowance cost 0.20 euros each.