# Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Groq Speech-to-Text

> Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)'s 70.3 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do speech stt.…

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- Updated: 2026-10-09

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)'s 70.3 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do speech stt.

- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux): grade BB, 70.3/100, rank #150 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepgram-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepgram-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

### Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) (BB)

Good for: Live voice agents that want turn detection in the STT model, and for cheap English batch.

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

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Training on audio is the default and the opt-out is a per-request flag

### 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 65
- Security & auth, 79 against 65
- Transparency & trust, 85 against 72

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) | Groq Speech-to-Text | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 90 | Groq Speech-to-Text +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 95 | 58 | Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) +37 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 75 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 79 | Groq Speech-to-Text +14 |
| 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 | Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 85 | Groq Speech-to-Text +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **70.3 · BB** | **71.8 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) | Groq Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Deepgram | Groq |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.deepgram.com/v1` | `https://api.groq.com/openai/v1` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio, SSE (legacy) | 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 | 2026-09-29 | 2026-08-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-06 | 2026-06-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2021-10-26 | 2025-11-12 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 468 stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 805k PyPI/wk | 621 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux).** Flux streams with model-level end-of-turn detection, so a voice agent needs no separate VAD. Training on audio is the default and the opt-out is a per-request flag.

**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

### Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)

1. Add `mip_opt_out=true` to every request that carries customer audio
2. Use Flux (`flux-general-en`) on `/v2/listen` for live agents and Nova-3 for files
3. Back off exponentially on 429. The concurrency limit is per project
4. Pass `callback` for long files so the request doesn't hit the 10-minute processing timeout
5. Mint keys with an expiry for short-lived jobs

### 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, Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) or Groq Speech-to-Text?

Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux)'s 70.3 (BB), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Do Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) and Groq Speech-to-Text need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) and Groq Speech-to-Text without installing anything?

Yes. Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) has a hosted endpoint at https://api.deepgram.com/v1 and Groq Speech-to-Text at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.


## For agents

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

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