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Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Soniox Speech-to-Text

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP has a score of 69.7 (B) against Soniox Speech-to-Text's 58.3 (C). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 50 points.

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPGladia · Model API B69.7/100#108 of 452 Soniox Speech-to-TextSoniox · Model API C58.3/100#281 of 452

Which one, for what

Pick Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP for

  • schema & documentation (+35)
  • agent ergonomics (+5)
  • payments & pricing (+20)
  • maintenance & community (+50)

Pick Soniox Speech-to-Text for

  • reliability (+5)
  • transparency & trust (+12)

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runGladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPSoniox Speech-to-TextEdge
Reliability16%206065Soniox Speech-to-Text +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.29560Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +35
Agent ergonomics13%16.27570Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +5
Security & auth14%17.57070even
Payments & pricing10%12.54020Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +20
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88030Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +50
Transparency & trust7%8.86678Soniox Speech-to-Text +12
Negative events≤1500
Total69.7 · B58.3 · C

Facts side by side

FactGladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPSoniox Speech-to-Text
KindModel APIModel API
VendorGladiaSoniox
Hosted endpointhttps://api.gladia.io/v2https://api.soniox.com/v1
TransportsHTTP, stdioHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreemiumPay per use
x402nono
LicenceMIT (SDKs and MCP server)Apache-2.0 (Python SDK)
Tools exposed8none
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 release2026-09-242026-08-11
Popularity4 stars, 4.8k npm/wk, 126k PyPI/wk12 stars, 22k npm/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)3.5/5 (2)

Verdicts

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.

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

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

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

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

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