Head to head · Speech stt · October 2026 research run
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Groq Speech-to-Text
Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Google Cloud Speech-to-Text's 70.2 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do speech stt.
Which one, for what
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text BB
Good for Google Cloud teams with audio already in Cloud Storage who want no training and no retention by default.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 80 against 58
- Security & auth, 95 against 79
Watch for
No release note since 2025-11-13
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 85
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 70
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 68 against 25
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 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text | Groq Speech-to-Text | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 85 | 90 | Groq Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 80 | 58 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 70 | 75 | Groq Speech-to-Text +5 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 95 | 79 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +16 |
| 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 | 25 | 68 | Groq Speech-to-Text +43 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 86 | 85 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 70.2 · BB | 71.8 · BB |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text | Groq Speech-to-Text |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Google Cloud | Groq |
| Hosted endpoint | https://speech.googleapis.com/v2 | https://api.groq.com/openai/v1 |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (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 | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-08-26 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-02 | 2026-06-22 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2025-11-12 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 713k npm/wk, 3.7M PyPI/wk | 621 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | none |
Verdicts
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
Audio isn't stored or used for training unless the project opts in to data logging. No release note since 2025-11-13.
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
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Call Chirp 3 on the
usoreuendpoint. It isn't listed for thegloballocation - Reopen streams before the 5-minute limit, or use
BatchRecognizefor recordings - Downmix stereo unless you need channel labels, since each channel is billed
- Set dynamic batch on offline jobs to cut the price from $0.016 to $0.003 a minute
- Back off on
RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED. The Speech docs don't give a retry interval
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, Google Cloud Speech-to-Text or Groq Speech-to-Text?
Groq Speech-to-Text scores 71.8 (BB) on agent readiness against Google Cloud Speech-to-Text's 70.2 (BB), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.
Do Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Groq Speech-to-Text need an API key?
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text uses an OAuth sign-in. Groq Speech-to-Text needs an API key.
Can an agent call Google Cloud Speech-to-Text and Groq Speech-to-Text without installing anything?
Yes. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text has a hosted endpoint at https://speech.googleapis.com/v2 and Groq Speech-to-Text at https://api.groq.com/openai/v1.
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- Amazon Transcribe vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
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- AssemblyAI Speech-to-Text (Universal) vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Azure AI Speech speech-to-text vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Deepgram Speech-to-Text (Nova-3, Flux) vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- ElevenLabs Scribe Speech to Text API vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP vs Groq Speech-to-Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Mistral Voxtral Transcribe
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Rev AI Speech-to-Text API
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Soniox Speech-to-Text
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text vs Speechmatics 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/google-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/google-speech-to-text.json·/api/v1/tools/groq-speech-to-text.json - From a terminal
anchor compare google-speech-to-text groq-speech-to-text(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "google-speech-to-text", "b": "groq-speech-to-text"}at/mcp, no key