Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Groq Speech-to-Text
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text scores 73 (BB) on agent readiness against Groq Speech-to-Text's 71.8 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Groq Speech-to-Text leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do speech stt.
Which one, for what
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text BB
Good for Teams on Azure who need several modes (real time, synchronous files, cheap batch, custom models) under one resource, or strict default data handling.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 58
- Security & auth, 85 against 79
- Maintenance & community, 80 against 68
Watch for
MAI-Transcribe-2 and MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming are preview with no SLA, and both introductory prices end with 2026
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 80
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
Also in its favour
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
No streaming or realtime endpoint and no diarisation in the reviewed documentation
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text | Groq Speech-to-Text | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 90 | Groq Speech-to-Text +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 80 | 58 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 75 | even |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 85 | 79 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +6 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 40 | Groq Speech-to-Text +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 80 | 68 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 85 | 85 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 73 · BB | 71.8 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text | Groq Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Microsoft Azure | Groq |
| Hosted endpoint | https://eastus.api.cognitive.microsoft.com/speechtotext | https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (samples), SDK under Microsoft's own licence | 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 | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-08-26 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-06-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-01 | 2025-11-12 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 3.5k stars, 476k npm/wk, 1M PyPI/wk | 621 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (8) | none |
Verdicts
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text
Real-time and fast transcription audio isn't stored, and customer audio isn't used for training. MAI-Transcribe-2 and the new MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming are preview with no SLA, and the streaming model's WebSocket route accepts the resource key in the URL query string.
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
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text
- Use fast transcription (
transcriptions:transcribe) for files under 5 hours and 500 MB, and batch for bulk jobs withtimeToLiveset - Pin
api-version=2025-10-15. v3.0 and the v3.2 previews are retired - On a 429, back off 1, 2, 4 then 4 minutes. It usually means autoscaling, not a quota
- For MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming, use Speech SDK 1.52 with the
/speech/universal/v2endpoint, or send the key in theapi-keyheader, never the query string - Don't budget on MAI-Transcribe-2 at $0.10 or MAI-Transcribe-2-Streaming at $0.54 an hour after 2026-12-31
Groq Speech-to-Text
- Send
whisper-large-v3-turbofor transcription andwhisper-large-v3for translation to English. The translations endpoint does not accept Turbo. - Pass
urlinstead offilefor audio over 25 MB, and split anything over the plan's size limit into overlapping chunks before sending. - Set
response_formattoverbose_jsonbefore asking fortimestamp_granularities[]. Word timestamps add latency, segment timestamps do not. - Every request is billed as at least 10 seconds of audio, so join very short clips where the task allows.
- Read
retry-afteron 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, Azure AI Speech speech-to-text or Groq Speech-to-Text?
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text scores 73 (BB) on agent readiness against Groq Speech-to-Text's 71.8 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Groq Speech-to-Text leads on reliability and payments & pricing.
Do Azure AI Speech speech-to-text and Groq Speech-to-Text need an API key?
Azure AI Speech speech-to-text takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Groq Speech-to-Text needs an API key.
Can an agent call Azure AI Speech speech-to-text and Groq Speech-to-Text without installing anything?
Yes. Azure AI Speech speech-to-text has a hosted endpoint at https://eastus.api.cognitive.microsoft.com/speechtotext and Groq Speech-to-Text at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.
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- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Groq Speech-to-Text vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe
- Groq Speech-to-Text vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Groq Speech-to-Text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Groq Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/azure-speech-to-text-vs-groq-speech-to-text.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/azure-speech-to-text.json·/api/v1/tools/groq-speech-to-text.json - From a terminal
anchor compare azure-speech-to-text groq-speech-to-text(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "azure-speech-to-text", "b": "groq-speech-to-text"}at/mcp, no key