Pulse Pro
Model: Pulse Pro · smallest.ai
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Response time · transcription only
For real-time speech-to-text, Smallest AI's Pulse leads on latency with ~64ms time-to-first-token and ranks #2 on the Open ASR Leaderboard at 5.42% average WER. Speechmatics is strong on global accents and on-premise deployment, but Pulse is the better fit when sub-100ms streaming and voice-agent responsiveness are the priority.
Speechmatics
Model: Ursa 2
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Response time · transcription only
Pulse Speech-to-Text
Real-time transcription with industry-leading accuracy and ~64ms time-to-first-token, built for live voice agents.
30+ Languages
Accurate transcription across 30+ languages, with native English performance ranked #2 on the Open ASR Leaderboard.
Enterprise-Grade Compliance
SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, ISO 27001, and HIPAA-ready — with a Business Associate Agreement available for healthcare deployments.
Features
Benchmarks
Benchmark
▼
WER % on the Hugging Face ESB benchmark (9 English datasets, streaming). Lower is better. Pulse is competitive on aggregate and leads on meeting/noisy audio; AssemblyAI leads on clean read speech. Source: HF ESB, internal evaluation.
Frequently
asked questions
Can Pulse STT run on-premise?
Why are teams looking for a Speechmatics alternative?
How does Pulse STT's accuracy compare to Speechmatics?
What does switching from Speechmatics to Pulse STT involve?
Does Speechmatics offer emotion recognition?