# Alternatives to Deepgram

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/alternatives/deepgram · Last updated: 2026-10-25 · Author: Agentic Weekly (operated independently from Texas, US) · Deepgram evidence: Reported (not run by us)

> 9 alternatives to Deepgram that we cover: AssemblyAI, Cartesia, Murf AI, Resemble AI, Retell AI, Speechify, Vapi, Piper, faster-whisper. Skip Deepgram if: You want a consumer notetaker.

## At a glance

| Tool | Evidence | Pricing | Latest version we cover | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deepgram | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| AssemblyAI | Reported (not run by us) | Partly verified | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Cartesia | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Murf AI | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Resemble AI | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Retell AI | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Speechify | Reported (not run by us) | Official page, dated | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Vapi | Reported (not run by us) | Partly verified | n/a | 2026-10-25 |
| Piper | Tested (smoke test, 2026-10-25, no LLM involved) | Partly verified | v1.8.0 | 2026-10-25 |
| faster-whisper | Tested (smoke test, 2026-10-25, no language model involved) | Partly verified | v1.2.1 | 2026-10-25 |

## AssemblyAI

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.

Pick AssemblyAI if: Developers adding transcription and speech understanding.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/assemblyai
- For AI voice and speech: neither AssemblyAI nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Cartesia

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers.

Pick Cartesia if: Developers building low-latency voice agents.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cartesia
- For AI voice and speech: neither Cartesia nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Murf AI

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing.

Pick Murf AI if: Developers who want low per-character TTS pricing; Teams building voice agents that need fast first audio.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/murf-ai
- For AI voice and speech: neither Murf AI nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Resemble AI

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Resemble AI now leads with real-time deepfake detection and watermarking for audio, video and images; plans from free to $1,000 a month.

Pick Resemble AI if: Enterprises verifying media authenticity.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/resemble-ai
- For AI voice and speech: neither Resemble AI nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Retell AI

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Voice AI agents for phone calls with pay-per-minute pricing and 20 free concurrent calls.

Pick Retell AI if: Teams automating inbound and outbound phone calls.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/retell
- For AI voice and speech: neither Retell AI nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Speechify

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Text-to-speech app that reads PDFs, books and web pages aloud, with a Free plan and a $29 monthly premium price.

Pick Speechify if: People who want documents read aloud.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/speechify
- For AI voice and speech: neither Speechify nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Vapi

Evidence: Reported (not run by us). Developer platform for voice agents; $5 free credits, then pay for the minutes you run.

Pick Vapi if: Developers who want to assemble their own voice stack.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/vapi
- For AI voice and speech: neither Vapi nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## Piper

Evidence: Tested (smoke test, 2026-10-25, no LLM involved). Fast, private speech synthesis on a CPU; mind the GPL-3.0 license if you embed it.

Pick Piper if: Local voice output without a GPU; Home and offline projects.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/piper
- For AI voice and speech: neither Piper nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## faster-whisper

Evidence: Tested (smoke test, 2026-10-25, no language model involved). Fast local transcription; on CPU use float32 and check int8 against a reference before trusting it.

Pick faster-whisper if: Local, private transcription; Developers building voice pipelines on CPU.

- Write-up: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/faster-whisper
- For AI voice and speech: neither faster-whisper nor Deepgram has an editorial rank in this category. (editorial ranks)

## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "Alternatives to Deepgram", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/alternatives/deepgram