# Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text

> Azure AI Speech speech-to-text has a score of 77 (BB) against Soniox Speech-to-Text's 58.3 (C). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 50 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

Azure AI Speech speech-to-text has a score of 77 (BB) against Soniox Speech-to-Text's 58.3 (C). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 50 points.

- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text: grade BB, 77/100, rank #23 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/azure-speech-to-text.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/azure-speech-to-text.json
- Soniox Speech-to-Text: grade C, 58.3/100, rank #281 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/soniox-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/soniox-stt.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Azure AI Speech speech-to-text for reliability (+25), schema & documentation (+20), agent ergonomics (+5), security & auth (+25), maintenance & community (+50), transparency & trust (+10).

Pick Soniox Speech-to-Text for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text | Soniox Speech-to-Text | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 90 | 65 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 60 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +20 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 70 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 95 | 70 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +25 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 30 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +50 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 88 | 78 | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **77 · BB** | **58.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Azure AI Speech speech-to-text | Soniox Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Microsoft Azure | Soniox |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://eastus.api.cognitive.microsoft.com/speechtotext` | `https://api.soniox.com/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (samples), SDK under Microsoft's own licence | Apache-2.0 (Python SDK) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-08-11 |
| Popularity | 3.5k stars, 476k npm/wk, 1M PyPI/wk | 12 stars, 22k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.3/5 (8) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## 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 is preview with no SLA, and its $0.10 promotional price ends on 2026-12-31.

**Soniox Speech-to-Text.** About $0.10 an hour async and $0.12 real time, with diarisation, language ID and translation included. No free credits for new accounts since October 2025.

## Before you call either

### Azure AI Speech speech-to-text

1. Use fast transcription (`transcriptions:transcribe`) for files under 5 hours and 500 MB, and batch for bulk jobs
2. Pin `api-version=2025-10-15`. v3.0 and the v3.2 previews are retired
3. On a 429, back off 1, 2, 4 then 4 minutes. It usually means autoscaling, not a quota
4. Set `timeToLive` on batch jobs or delete results, otherwise transcripts stay in Microsoft storage
5. Don't budget on MAI-Transcribe-2 at $0.10 an hour after 2026-12-31

### Soniox Speech-to-Text

1. Pass `audio_url` for public files and skip the upload step. Delete uploaded files or they count against the 10 GB quota for 30 days
2. Use the `context` field for names and domain terms
3. Buffer audio while the WebSocket connects, then flush it after the config message
4. Split anything over 300 minutes. The cap is fixed
5. Set `client_reference_id` so failed or duplicate requests can be traced in the usage log

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