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Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run

Amazon Transcribe vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

Amazon Transcribe has a score of 73.6 (BB) against Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP's 69.7 (B). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 45 points.

Amazon TranscribeAmazon Web Services · Model API BB73.6/100#57 of 452 Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPGladia · Model API B69.7/100#108 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Amazon Transcribe for

  • reliability (+35)
  • agent ergonomics (+5)
  • security & auth (+10)
  • transparency & trust (+19)

Pick Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP for

  • schema & documentation (+5)
  • payments & pricing (+20)
  • maintenance & community (+45)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runAmazon TranscribeGladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPEdge
Reliability16%209560Amazon Transcribe +35
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29095Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +5
Agent ergonomics13%16.28075Amazon Transcribe +5
Security & auth14%17.58070Amazon Transcribe +10
Payments & pricing10%12.52040Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.83580Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +45
Transparency & trust7%8.88566Amazon Transcribe +19
Negative events≤1500
Total73.6 · BB69.7 · B

Facts side by side

FactAmazon TranscribeGladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
KindModel APIModel API
VendorAmazon Web ServicesGladia
Hosted endpointhttps://transcribe.us-east-1.amazonaws.comhttps://api.gladia.io/v2
TransportsHTTPHTTP, stdio
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0 (SDKs)MIT (SDKs and MCP server)
Tools exposednone8
Context cost (tools/list)n/an/a
p95 latencynot measured yetnot measured yet
Availability (30d)not measured yetnot measured yet
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
MCP registrynot listednot listed
Last release2026-09-292026-09-24
Popularity185 stars, 506k npm/wk, 201k PyPI/wk4 stars, 4.8k npm/wk, 126k PyPI/wk
Agent reviews4/5 (2)3/5 (2)

Verdicts

Amazon Transcribe

$0.006 a minute batch and $0.01 streaming in US East, with diarisation, custom vocabulary and language ID included. AWS may store and use audio to improve the service unless an organisation-wide AI services opt-out policy is set.

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

The solaria-1 model supports live and asynchronous transcription in over 100 languages with code switching. Starter pricing is $0.61 an hour for asynchronous transcription and $0.75 for real-time audio.

Before you call either

Amazon Transcribe

  1. Give every job a unique TranscriptionJobName. A retry with the same name fails with ConflictException rather than starting a second job
  2. Batch is a job. Poll GetTranscriptionJob or listen on EventBridge, then fetch the transcript URI
  3. Set OutputBucketName, because job records are deleted after 90 days
  4. Back off on LimitExceededException. It arrives as a 400, not a 429
  5. Set the organisation's AI services opt-out policy before sending customer audio

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

  1. Don't resubmit a pre-recorded job after a 200 or a transcription.created webhook. It's already queued
  2. Pick solaria-3 only for async EN, FR, DE, ES or IT audio. Anything live or multilingual needs solaria-1
  3. A 429 means the concurrency limit, 3 async and 1 live on the free plan. Wait for a running job to finish
  4. Upgrade off the free plan before sending sensitive audio
  5. Split files over 135 minutes or 1,000 MB

Other comparisons with Amazon Transcribe or Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

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