# whisper.cpp not run: our test log

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/tests/whisper-cpp · Last verified: 2026-10-25 · Published: 2026-10-25 · Author: Agentic Weekly (operated independently from Texas, US) · Evidence: Tested by us on 2026-10-25. Local open-weight model, not the vendor's hosted models. A smoke test on a CPU-only box, not a benchmark.

> We could not run whisper.cpp: no prebuilt Linux release was available for download and this machine has no make, g++ or cmake to build it.

## Result at a glance

Table: whisper.cpp test record

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Result | Could not be run |
| Version tested | not run |
| Date and time | 2026-10-25 (America/Chicago) |
| Task | Obtain a runnable whisper.cpp CLI and transcribe the same audio used for faster-whisper. |
| Model used | none (no language model involved) |
| Hardware | Linux x86_64 virtual machine (Debian 13), 8 vCPU (Intel Xeon, 1 thread per core), 15 GiB RAM, no GPU |
| Result | could not run |

## What we found

- No transcription was run, so we publish no accuracy or speed figure for whisper.cpp. faster-whisper (separate test) covers the same job.

## What we ran, step by step

Table: Commands run, wall-clock time and exit code

| Step | Wall time | Exit code | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Look for a prebuilt Linux binary | n/a | 1 | No Linux x64 CLI asset was offered for us to download at the time we looked. |
| Build from source | n/a | n/a | We did not run the build: cmake, make and g++ are not installed on this machine, so we did not build it. |

Exact commands (paths shortened)

```
# Look for a prebuilt Linux binary
check the GitHub releases for a Linux x64 CLI asset

# Build from source
cmake -B build && cmake --build build
```

## Gotchas and things that broke

- This is a limit of our machine, not a verdict on the project.

## What we did not test

- Everything.

## Reproduce it

Versions change. These commands install whatever is latest on the day you run them unless a version is pinned, so expect different results later. The version we measured is in the table above.

```
git clone https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp && cd whisper.cpp && cmake -B build && cmake --build build -j
```

## How to read this test

Every number on this page was measured on this one machine, which also ran other jobs, so timings are indicative and vary run to run. A pass means our small task worked once or as stated, a fail means it did not work as we ran it; neither says how the tool behaves with a vendor's frontier model, on a GPU, or at scale. Where a tool could not run without an account or a GPU, we say so instead of guessing.

See the [testing rig](https://theagenticweekly.com/methodology#testing-rig) for the hardware, the local model and the rules we follow, and the [test hub](https://theagenticweekly.com/tests) for every other test.

## FAQ

### Why is there no whisper.cpp result?

It could not be run on our test machine without a build toolchain; we did not substitute a number.

## Sources

- [whisper.cpp repository](https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp) (fetched 2026-10-25)

## Related

- [All test logs](https://theagenticweekly.com/tests)
- [Methodology and testing rig](https://theagenticweekly.com/methodology#testing-rig)
- [Study: a voice round trip with Piper and faster-whisper](https://theagenticweekly.com/research/voice-round-trip-piper-faster-whisper)

## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "whisper.cpp not run: our test log", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/tests/whisper-cpp