Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run
Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP has a score of 69.7 (B) against Speechmatics Speech-to-Text's 67.3 (B). Both do speech stt. The largest gap is schema & documentation, 30 points.
Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCPGladia · Model API
B69.7/100#108 of 452
Speechmatics Speech-to-TextSpeechmatics · Model API
B67.3/100#145 of 452
Which one, for what
Pick Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP for
- schema & documentation (+30)
- security & auth (+5)
- maintenance & community (+5)
Pick Speechmatics Speech-to-Text for
- reliability (+10)
- agent ergonomics (+5)
- transparency & trust (+12)
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 60 | 70 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +10 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 95 | 65 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 75 | 80 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 70 | 65 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 80 | 75 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 66 | 78 | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text +12 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 69.7 · B | 67.3 · B |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Gladia | Speechmatics |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.gladia.io/v2 | https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2 |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs and MCP server) | MIT (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | 8 | 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 | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 4 stars, 4.8k npm/wk, 126k PyPI/wk | 20 stars, 58k npm/wk, 48k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (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.
Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
Training is opt-in and real-time audio is not stored. Enhanced transcription costs $0.40 to $0.43 an hour.
Before you call either
Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- Don't resubmit a pre-recorded job after a 200 or a
transcription.createdwebhook. It's already queued - Pick
solaria-3only for async EN, FR, DE, ES or IT audio. Anything live or multilingual needssolaria-1 - A 429 means the concurrency limit, 3 async and 1 live on the free plan. Wait for a running job to finish
- Upgrade off the free plan before sending sensitive audio
- Split files over 135 minutes or 1,000 MB
Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Set
"model": "enhanced"explicitly. The default isstandard - Use notifications instead of polling. Polling waits 5 seconds by default since the 23 September 2026 change, and
wait=0turns that off - Fetch batch transcripts within 7 days. After that the API returns 404
expired - Pass a
fetch_dataURL for files over 1 GB - Use
/v2/agentwithlinden-1for live agents instead of the plain realtime path
Other comparisons with Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP or Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Amazon Transcribe vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- Amazon Transcribe vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Rev AI Speech-to-Text API vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text
- Soniox Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text