transcribe-rs

Multi-engine speech-to-text library for Rust. Supports Parakeet, Canary, Moonshine, SenseVoice, GigaAM, Whisper, Whisperfile, and OpenAI.

Breaking Changes in 0.3.0

Version 0.3.0 changes the SpeechModel trait. If you need the old API, pin to version = "=0.2.9".

• transcribe() and transcribe_file() now take &TranscribeOptions instead of Option<&str> for language
• SpeechModel requires Send, enabling Box<dyn SpeechModel + Send> across threads
• TranscribeOptions includes a translate field for Whisper/Whisperfile translation support
• WhisperEngine::capabilities() now returns actual model language support (English-only vs multilingual) instead of always reporting 99 languages

Note: 0.3.0 is a large migration. We believe correctness is preserved for all engines, but expect potential issues as this stabilizes. Please report any problems on GitHub.

Installation

[dependencies]
transcribe-rs = { version = "0.3", features = ["onnx"] }

No features are enabled by default. Pick the engines you need:

Feature	Engines
onnx	Parakeet, Canary, Moonshine, SenseVoice, GigaAM (via ONNX Runtime)
whisper-cpp	Whisper (local, GGML via whisper.cpp with Metal/Vulkan)
whisperfile	Whisperfile (local server wrapper)
openai	OpenAI API (remote, async)
all	Everything above

GPU accelerator features for ORT engines:

Feature	Backend
ort-cuda	NVIDIA CUDA
ort-rocm	AMD ROCm
ort-directml	Microsoft DirectML (Windows)

Quick Start

use transcribe_rs::onnx::parakeet::{ParakeetModel, ParakeetParams, TimestampGranularity};
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = ParakeetModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-int8"),
    &Quantization::Int8,
)?;

let samples = transcribe_rs::audio::read_wav_samples(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"))?;
let result = model.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &ParakeetParams {
        timestamp_granularity: Some(TimestampGranularity::Segment),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;
println!("{}", result.text);

All local engines implement the SpeechModel trait. Remote engines (OpenAI) implement RemoteTranscriptionEngine separately because they are async and file-based.

Hardware Acceleration

By default, engines use CPU. To enable GPU acceleration, enable the appropriate feature and set the accelerator preference before loading any models:

use transcribe_rs::{set_ort_accelerator, OrtAccelerator};

// Use CUDA for all ORT engines (SenseVoice, GigaAM, Parakeet, Moonshine)
set_ort_accelerator(OrtAccelerator::Cuda);

// Or auto-detect the best available GPU
set_ort_accelerator(OrtAccelerator::Auto);

For whisper.cpp, GPU backend (Metal, Vulkan) is selected at compile time. You can control whether GPU is used at runtime:

use transcribe_rs::{set_whisper_accelerator, WhisperAccelerator};

set_whisper_accelerator(WhisperAccelerator::CpuOnly); // force CPU

DirectML note: DirectML requires special ORT session settings (parallel_execution(false), memory_pattern(false)) that would hurt performance on other backends. Because of this, Auto mode does not include DirectML — you must explicitly select it with OrtAccelerator::DirectMl.

Query which ORT accelerators are compiled in with OrtAccelerator::available().

Usage by Engine

Canary

use transcribe_rs::onnx::canary::{CanaryModel, CanaryParams};
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = CanaryModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/canary-1b-v2"),
    &Quantization::Int8,
)?;

let samples = transcribe_rs::audio::read_wav_samples(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"))?;
let result = model.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &CanaryParams {
        language: Some("en".to_string()),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;

Canary supports translation via target_language:

let result = model.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &CanaryParams {
        language: Some("de".to_string()),
        target_language: Some("en".to_string()),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;

Model variant (Flash vs V2) is auto-detected from vocabulary size. Flash models support en/de/es/fr; V2 supports 25 languages.

Features:

• PnC (punctuation and capitalization) — enabled by default. When on, the model adds proper punctuation and capitalization. Set use_pnc: false for raw output.
• ITN (inverse text normalization) — enabled by default. Converts spoken numbers to written form (e.g. "one hundred twenty three" becomes "123"). Set use_itn: false to disable. Only supported on V2 models; silently ignored on Flash.
• Translation — set target_language to translate between supported languages.

SenseVoice

use transcribe_rs::onnx::sense_voice::{SenseVoiceModel, SenseVoiceParams};
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = SenseVoiceModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/sherpa-onnx-sense-voice-zh-en-ja-ko-yue-2024-07-17"),
    &Quantization::Int8,
)?;

let samples = transcribe_rs::audio::read_wav_samples(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"))?;
let result = model.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &SenseVoiceParams {
        language: Some("en".to_string()),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;

Moonshine

use transcribe_rs::onnx::moonshine::{MoonshineModel, MoonshineVariant};
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use transcribe_rs::SpeechModel;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = MoonshineModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/moonshine-base"),
    MoonshineVariant::Base,
    &Quantization::default(),
)?;
let result = model.transcribe_file(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"), &transcribe_rs::TranscribeOptions::default())?;

Streaming variant:

use transcribe_rs::onnx::moonshine::StreamingModel;
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use transcribe_rs::SpeechModel;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = StreamingModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/moonshine-streaming/moonshine-tiny-streaming-en"),
    4,  // threads
    &Quantization::default(),
)?;
let result = model.transcribe_file(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"), &transcribe_rs::TranscribeOptions::default())?;

GigaAM

use transcribe_rs::onnx::gigaam::GigaAMModel;
use transcribe_rs::onnx::Quantization;
use transcribe_rs::SpeechModel;
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut model = GigaAMModel::load(
    &PathBuf::from("models/giga-am-v3"),
    &Quantization::default(),
)?;
let result = model.transcribe_file(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"), &transcribe_rs::TranscribeOptions::default())?;

Whisper (whisper.cpp)

use transcribe_rs::whisper_cpp::{WhisperEngine, WhisperInferenceParams};
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut engine = WhisperEngine::load(&PathBuf::from("models/whisper-medium-q4_1.bin"))?;

let samples = transcribe_rs::audio::read_wav_samples(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"))?;
let result = engine.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &WhisperInferenceParams {
        initial_prompt: Some("Context prompt here.".to_string()),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;

Whisperfile

use transcribe_rs::whisperfile::{
    WhisperfileEngine, WhisperfileInferenceParams, WhisperfileLoadParams,
};
use std::path::PathBuf;

let mut engine = WhisperfileEngine::load_with_params(
    &PathBuf::from("models/whisperfile-0.9.3"),
    &PathBuf::from("models/ggml-small.bin"),
    WhisperfileLoadParams {
        port: 8080,
        startup_timeout_secs: 60,
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;

let samples = transcribe_rs::audio::read_wav_samples(&PathBuf::from("audio.wav"))?;
let result = engine.transcribe_with(
    &samples,
    &WhisperfileInferenceParams {
        language: Some("en".to_string()),
        ..Default::default()
    },
)?;
// Server shuts down automatically when engine is dropped.

OpenAI (Remote)

use transcribe_rs::remote::openai::{self, OpenAIModel, OpenAIRequestParams};
use transcribe_rs::{remote, RemoteTranscriptionEngine};
use std::path::PathBuf;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
    let engine = openai::default_engine();
    let result = engine
        .transcribe_file(
            &PathBuf::from("audio.wav"),
            OpenAIRequestParams::builder()
                .model(OpenAIModel::Gpt4oMiniTranscribe)
                .timestamp_granularity(remote::openai::OpenAITimestampGranularity::Segment)
                .build()?,
        )
        .await?;
    println!("{}", result.text);
    Ok(())
}

Models

All audio input must be 16 kHz, mono, 16-bit PCM WAV.

Model Downloads

Engine	Download
Parakeet (int8)	blob.handy.computer / HuggingFace
Canary 180M Flash	HuggingFace
Canary 1B Flash	HuggingFace
Canary 1B v2	HuggingFace
SenseVoice (int8)	blob.handy.computer / sherpa-onnx
Moonshine	HuggingFace
GigaAM	HuggingFace
Whisper (GGML)	HuggingFace
Whisperfile binary	GitHub

Directory Layouts

Parakeet (directory):

models/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3-int8/
├── encoder-model.int8.onnx
├── decoder_joint-model.int8.onnx
├── nemo128.onnx
└── vocab.txt

Canary (directory):

models/canary-1b-v2/
├── encoder-model.int8.onnx
├── decoder-model.int8.onnx
├── nemo128.onnx
└── vocab.txt

SenseVoice (directory):

models/sense-voice/
├── model.int8.onnx
└── tokens.txt

Moonshine (directory):

models/moonshine-base/
├── encoder_model.onnx
├── decoder_model_merged.onnx
└── tokenizer.json

Moonshine Streaming (directory):

models/moonshine-streaming/moonshine-tiny-streaming-en/
├── encoder.onnx
├── decoder.onnx
├── streaming_config.json
└── tokenizer.json

GigaAM (directory):

models/giga-am-v3/
├── model.onnx          (or model.int8.onnx)
└── vocab.txt

Whisper: single file (e.g. whisper-medium-q4_1.bin).

Moonshine Variants

Variant	Language
Tiny	English
TinyAr	Arabic
TinyZh	Chinese
TinyJa	Japanese
TinyKo	Korean
TinyUk	Ukrainian
TinyVi	Vietnamese
Base	English
BaseEs	Spanish

Examples and Tests

Each engine has an example in examples/. Run with the appropriate feature flag:

cargo run --example parakeet --features onnx
cargo run --example canary --features onnx
cargo run --example sense_voice --features onnx
cargo run --example moonshine --features onnx
cargo run --example moonshine_streaming --features onnx
cargo run --example gigaam --features onnx
cargo run --example whisper --features whisper-cpp
cargo run --example whisperfile --features whisperfile
cargo run --example openai --features openai

Tests are also feature-gated. Models must be present locally; tests skip gracefully if not found.

cargo test --features onnx
cargo test --features whisper-cpp
cargo test --features whisperfile
cargo test --all-features

Whisperfile tests look for the binary at models/whisperfile-0.9.3 (override with WHISPERFILE_BIN) and model at models/ggml-small.bin (override with WHISPERFILE_MODEL). GigaAM tests require samples/russian.wav.

Development aliases from .cargo/config.toml:

cargo check-all    # cargo check --all-features
cargo build-all    # cargo build --all-features
cargo test-all     # cargo test --all-features

Performance

Parakeet int8 benchmarks:

Platform	Speed
MBP M4 Max	~30x real-time
Zen 3 (5700X)	~20x real-time
Skylake (i5-6500)	~5x real-time
Jetson Nano CPU	~5x real-time

Acknowledgments

• istupakov for the ONNX Parakeet, Canary, and GigaAM exports
• NVIDIA for Parakeet and Canary
• whisper.cpp
• jart / Mozilla AI for llamafile and Whisperfile
• UsefulSensors for Moonshine
• FunASR / sherpa-onnx for SenseVoice
• SberDevices for GigaAM