whisper.cpp

whisper.cpp is open-source code that runs OpenAI's Whisper speech-to-text model on your own device, with no dependencies and no internet connection needed. You build it yourself and download the model you want.

• Plain C/C++ implementation without dependencies
• Runs fully offline on-device, including on iPhone
• Optimized for Apple Silicon, and supports NVIDIA, AMD and Vulkan GPUs or CPU only
• Integer quantization to cut memory and disk use
• Real-time microphone transcription example
• Voice Activity Detection support

Tasks

Transcribe audio & video

People

Developers adding offline transcription to apps, Privacy-minded users who keep audio on their own machine, Hobbyists running speech recognition on a Mac, Raspberry Pi or phone

• Inference only: it does not train models
• You build it from source and download models yourself
• The real-time microphone example is described as naive

Is whisper.cpp free?

Yes. whisper.cpp has a free plan: Open source (MIT): free C/C++ speech recognition you build and run yourself. We last checked github.com's pricing page on 2026-11-12.

What does the whisper.cpp free plan include?

Open source (MIT): free C/C++ speech recognition you build and run yourself. Source: https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp (checked 2026-11-12).

How do I get whisper.cpp for free?

Steps: Clone the repository from GitHub; Download a ggml Whisper model with the included script; Build it and run whisper-cli on an audio file. Start at https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp (checked 2026-10-28).

Do I need an account to use whisper.cpp for free?

Not for the free option: the free route is to self-host whisper.cpp (Clone the repository from GitHub). Checked 2026-10-28.

What's the catch with whisper.cpp's free plan?

Inference only. You build and run it yourself. Checked 2026-10-28.

What are free alternatives to whisper.cpp?

TurboScribe, Notta and Typeless all have free plans. We checked their free offers on 2026-11-12.

Does whisper.cpp work offline?

Yes. The README shows it running fully offline and on-device on an iPhone 13.Source: github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp

Which platforms does it support?

Mac OS (Intel and Arm), iOS, Android, Java, Linux / FreeBSD, WebAssembly, Windows, Raspberry Pi and Docker.Source: github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp

Free offer

Verified 2026-11-12 on github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/blob/master/LICENSE

…is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this…

Page content

Checked 2026-10-28 against

• github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp
• github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/blob/master/LICENSE

How we check free offers