Model · Voice and speech

Distil-Whisper

A smaller, faster version of OpenAI's Whisper that turns English speech into text, about six times quicker than the full model. Free to download and use, including commercially. Needs some technical setup.

Go to Distil-Whisper’s website

At a glance

Open or closed: Fully open
Weights and code downloadable under a standard open licence
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Licence: MIT (Permissive (e.g. Apache 2.0, MIT))
Card says the MIT licence is inherited from OpenAI Whisper.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Can I sell what I make?: Yes
Follows from the MIT licence.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Cost: Free option: Free to download; you pay for your own hardware
Plans below.
How you use it: On your own computer, Through another service
Converted versions for whisper.cpp, Faster-Whisper, OpenAI Whisper, Transformers.js and Candle.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page
Skill needed: Technical
Used through Python code (Transformers) or command-line tools.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked, but the page was unclear or partial
Made by: Hugging Face (distil-whisper project)
Published by the distil-whisper organisation on Hugging Face; distilled from OpenAI Whisper large-v3. No country stated.
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked, but the page was unclear or partial
Status: Available
source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page

What you can make with it

A voice or speech, text from a recording (main use)

audio to text

English only. Can also act as a fast helper (speculative decoding) for full Whisper large-v3.

source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page

Plans and prices

No paid plans listed.

source · checked 12 Oct 2026 · checked on the maker's own page

Where you can run it

Hugging Face

Other options for “A voice or speech, text from a recording”

Adobe Podcast (Enhance Speech), Adobe Premiere, AssemblyAI, Async (formerly Podcastle), AudioShake, Auphonic, Azure AI Speech, CAMB.AI, Cartesia, Cleanvoice AI, Clipchamp, Deepgram, Descript, Dubverse, ElevenLabs, Filmora, Gling, Happy Scribe, Hugging Face, Kapwing, Krisp, MacWhisper, MiniMax Audio, Narakeet

About this entry

Facts last checked 12 Oct 2026 against the maker’s own pages (each fact links to its source). Entry status: draft. Plain-English summary written by Plainly.