Head-to-head comparison based on real production benchmarks with Gulf Arabic callers.
Ultra-fast Arabic STT with poor transcription quality.
Best-in-class Arabic STT with ultra-low latency. Production-tested winner.
Users had to repeat themselves frequently. Quality unacceptable for production use.
Accurately captures Gulf Arabic phrases. No user repetitions needed in production calls.
| Feature | Speechmatics | Deepgram Nova-3 |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time streaming transcription | ✓ | ✓ |
| Configurable endpointing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Standard and enhanced operating points | ✓ | ✗ |
| Custom dictionary | ✓ | ✗ |
| Automatic language detection | ✗ | ✓ |
| Endpointing / end-of-utterance detection | ✗ | ✓ |
| Punctuation and formatting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Word-level timestamps | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom vocabulary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multichannel support | ✗ | ✓ |
| Capability | Speechmatics | Deepgram Nova-3 |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming support | ✓ | ✓ |
| LiveKit plugin | ✗ | ✓ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✗ |
| API style | WebSocket streaming + REST | WebSocket streaming + REST |
| SDKs | Python, Node.js | Python, Node.js, Go, .NET, Rust |
Amazingly fast but Arabic quality is too poor for production. The speed advantage is meaningless when users have to repeat themselves.
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 is faster with an average end-of-utterance delay of 424ms, which is 36ms faster than Speechmatics.
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.
Speechmatics starts at $0.0042 per minute (Real-time streaming). Deepgram Nova-3 starts at $0.0043 per minute (Nova-3 streaming).