Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
Best-in-class Arabic STT with ultra-low latency. Production-tested winner.
ElevenLabs' realtime STT offering — poor quality and slow for Arabic.
Accurately captures Gulf Arabic phrases. No user repetitions needed in production calls.
Described as 'shit quality' in production testing. Not viable for Arabic.
| Feature | Deepgram Nova-3 | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time streaming transcription | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic language detection | ✓ | ✗ |
| Endpointing / end-of-utterance detection | ✓ | ✗ |
| Punctuation and formatting | ✓ | ✗ |
| Word-level timestamps | ✓ | ✗ |
| Custom vocabulary | ✓ | ✗ |
| Multichannel support | ✓ | ✗ |
| Multiple language support | ✗ | ✓ |
| LiveKit inference integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | Deepgram Nova-3 | ElevenLabs Scribe v2 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✓ | ✓ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✗ | ✗ |
| API style | WebSocket streaming + REST | WebSocket streaming |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js, Go, .NET, Rust | Python, Node.js |
The clear winner for Arabic STT. Deepgram Nova-3 delivers excellent quality at 424ms average EOU delay — fast enough for real-time voice agents.
Poor quality and poor latency for Arabic. Not recommended for any Arabic STT use case.
Deepgram Nova-3 is faster with an average end-of-utterance delay of 424ms, which is 1576ms faster than ElevenLabs Scribe v2.
Deepgram Nova-3 has a quality rating of 5/5 (Excellent). Accurately captures Gulf Arabic phrases. No user repetitions needed in production calls.
Deepgram Nova-3 is recommended for production use. The clear winner for Arabic STT. Deepgram Nova-3 delivers excellent quality at 424ms average EOU delay — fast enough for real-time voice agents.
Deepgram Nova-3 starts at $0.0043 per minute (Nova-3 streaming). ElevenLabs Scribe v2 starts at $5 per month (Includes STT credits).