# AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Groq Speech-to-Text

> Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)'s 66.8 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do…

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)'s 66.8 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. Both do speech stt.

- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal): grade B, 66.8/100, rank #253 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/assemblyai-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/assemblyai-stt.json
- Groq Speech-to-Text: grade BB, 71.8/100, rank #113 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/groq-speech-to-text.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq-speech-to-text.json

## Which one, for what

### AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) (B)

Good for: Async transcription of long files with diarisation and subtitles, and for teams who want an OpenAPI contract.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 75
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 68

Watch for: Two outages of an hour or more in the last 90 days, on 31 July and 16 September 2026

### Groq Speech-to-Text (BB)

Good for: Suited to cheap, fast transcription of recorded files in many languages, and to agents that already hold a Groq key or use an OpenAI-compatible client.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 90 against 70
- Security & auth, 79 against 50
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 76

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No incidents deducted, where AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No streaming or realtime endpoint and no diarisation in the reviewed documentation


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) | Groq Speech-to-Text | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 70 | 90 | Groq Speech-to-Text +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 58 | AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) +37 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 75 | AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 50 | 79 | Groq Speech-to-Text +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 68 | AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 85 | Groq Speech-to-Text +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **66.8 · B** | **71.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) | Groq Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | AssemblyAI | Groq |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.assemblyai.com/v2` | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | Proprietary hosted service under the Groq Services Agreement. The SDKs are Apache-2.0 and the Whisper weights are published by OpenAI on Hugging Face |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-08-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-01 | 2026-06-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-26 | 2025-11-12 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 213 stars, 600k npm/wk, 738k PyPI/wk | 621 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal).** OpenAPI 3.1 file with typed inputs and error responses on every operation. Two outages of an hour or more in the last 90 days, on 31 July and 16 September 2026.

**Groq Speech-to-Text.** Whisper Large v3 Turbo costs $0.04 an audio hour and Whisper Large v3 $0.111, with a no-card free plan and zero data retention as a self-serve setting. There is no streaming endpoint, no diarisation and no subtitle output, and uploads stop at 25 MB on the free plan and 100 MB on the Developer plan.

## Before you call either

### AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)

1. Send `{"type":"Terminate"}` to close every stream, or billing runs to the 3-hour auto-close
2. Use `speech_models` (plural). The singular `speech_model` now returns 400 for current model names
3. Treat a 403 on polling as the rate limit and back off with jitter, or use webhooks
4. Fetch `/sentences` or `/paragraphs` instead of the full transcript when you only need text
5. Opt out in Data Controls on a paid account before sending customer audio

### Groq Speech-to-Text

1. Send `whisper-large-v3-turbo` for transcription and `whisper-large-v3` for translation to English. The translations endpoint does not accept Turbo.
2. Pass `url` instead of `file` for audio over 25 MB, and split anything over the plan's size limit into overlapping chunks before sending.
3. Set `response_format` to `verbose_json` before asking for `timestamp_granularities[]`. Word timestamps add latency, segment timestamps do not.
4. Every request is billed as at least 10 seconds of audio, so join very short clips where the task allows.
5. Read `retry-after` on a 429 and back off. Audio limits count seconds an hour and a day as well as requests.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) or Groq Speech-to-Text?

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal)'s 66.8 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) leads on schema & documentation, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.

### Do AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) and Groq Speech-to-Text need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) and Groq Speech-to-Text without installing anything?

Yes. AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) has a hosted endpoint at https://api.assemblyai.com/v2 and Groq Speech-to-Text at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-groq-speech-to-text.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-stt-vs-groq-speech-to-text.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "assemblyai-stt", "b": "groq-speech-to-text"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare assemblyai-stt groq-speech-to-text`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/assemblyai-stt.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/groq-speech-to-text.json

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