heBest local speech-to-text models for Hebrew
6 of the 26 reviewed local speech-to-text models explicitly list Hebrew. For long recordings on a mid-range NVIDIA GPU the matcher's first pick is Whisper turbo; none of them streams Hebrew natively, so live use relies on chunking runtimes; for meetings with speaker labels it is VibeVoice-ASR 7B. 0 models offer native streaming, 1 native speaker diarization and 6 have a permissive license.
Top matches by setup
Computed with the same deterministic matcher as the homepage, restricted to models whose official source lists Hebrew. To keep the shortlist useful, each row shows the best-ranked model from three different families (for example, only one Whisper size). Scores are decision guidance, not accuracy claims.
| Setup | #1 | #2 | #3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long recordings, 8–12 GB NVIDIA GPU, balanced | Whisper turbo 79/100 · Strong fit | VibeVoice-ASR 7B 68/100 · Possible fit | — |
| Live transcription (native streaming, speed first) | Whisper turbo 76/100 · Strong fit | VibeVoice-ASR 7B 44/100 · Weak fit | — |
| Meetings with speaker labels (diarization + timestamps) | VibeVoice-ASR 7B 86/100 · Excellent fit | Whisper medium 84/100 · Strong fit | — |
| Subtitles with timing, accuracy first | Whisper medium 87/100 · Excellent fit | VibeVoice-ASR 7B 79/100 · Strong fit | — |
| CPU-only machine, low memory use | Whisper tiny 74/100 · Strong fit | VibeVoice-ASR 7B 51/100 · Weak fit | — |
Re-rank for your setup
Change hardware, workload and requirements to re-rank all 6 Hebrew-capable models in your browser.
Choose by requirement
- Live captions and voice input
- No reviewed model streams Hebrew natively. Whisper-style models can be run through chunking runtimes; expect higher latency and test word splits at chunk borders.
- Speaker-labelled meetings
- Native diarization: VibeVoice-ASR 7B. Other models need a separate diarization pipeline.
- Commercial products
- Permissive licenses: Whisper (tiny, base, small, medium, turbo) and VibeVoice-ASR 7B. 0 other models carry attribution, ShareAlike or custom terms.
- CPU-only or low-power machines
- Rated 4/5 or better for CPU-only use: Whisper tiny, Whisper base and Whisper small.
All 6 models that list Hebrew
| Model | Streaming | Timestamps | Diarization | License | CPU · NVIDIA fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VibeVoice-ASR 7B Microsoft · 9B total | No | Yes | Yes | MIT Permissive | 1/5 · 4/5 |
| Whisper base OpenAI · 74M | Via runtime | Yes | No | MIT Permissive | 5/5 · 4/5 |
| Whisper medium OpenAI · 769M | Via runtime | Yes | No | MIT Permissive | 2/5 · 5/5 |
| Whisper small OpenAI · 244M | Via runtime | Yes | No | MIT Permissive | 4/5 · 5/5 |
| Whisper tiny OpenAI · 39M | Via runtime | Yes | No | MIT Permissive | 5/5 · 4/5 |
| Whisper turbo OpenAI · 809M | Via runtime | Yes | No | MIT Permissive | 2/5 · 5/5 |
Multilingual models that do not list Hebrew
Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3, Orukeet, Qwen3-ASR 0.6B, Qwen3-ASR 1.7B, Omnilingual ASR CTC 300M, Cohere Transcribe 03-2026, VibeVoice-ASR Streaming 1.5B, VibeVoice-ASR-BitNet, Fun-ASR-MLT-Nano-2512, Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime 2602, Granite Speech 5.0 2B, Granite Speech 5.0 470M TurboCTC, VibeVoice-ASR-Streaming-7B, Parakeet Redux, Whistle and Jais-ASR are multilingual but do not list Hebrew in the reviewed official source, so the matcher does not recommend them for this language. Nemotron 3.5 ASR Streaming 0.6B lists Hebrew as adaptation-ready: fine-tuning is required before full transcription. Omnilingual ASR documents 1,600+ language-script codes, so check Meta's full list ↗ before ruling it out.
The same shortlist applies to 12 other languages
The reviewed official sources list exactly the same 6 models for Afrikaans, Armenian, Catalan, Icelandic, Javanese, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Serbian, Swahili, Urdu and Yiddish. The rankings, requirement picks and license notes on this page therefore apply unchanged to those languages; accuracy per language still differs, so test with your own recordings.
Common questions
What is the best local speech-to-text model for Hebrew?
There is no single winner; it depends on the workload. In the matcher, Whisper turbo leads for long recordings on a mid-range GPU, VibeVoice-ASR 7B for meetings with speaker labels and Whisper tiny for CPU-only machines. Benchmark the top two or three on your own Hebrew audio before deciding.
Is there an offline Hebrew model with real-time streaming?
Not natively among the reviewed models. You can stream through chunking runtimes, but latency and accuracy at chunk borders must be tested.
Does Whisper support Hebrew?
Yes. All Whisper sizes list Hebrew in the official tokenizer language list. Smaller sizes trade accuracy for speed; Whisper turbo is the usual starting point on a GPU.
Which models do not support Hebrew?
Among multilingual models, Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3, Orukeet, Qwen3-ASR 0.6B, Qwen3-ASR 1.7B, Omnilingual ASR CTC 300M, Cohere Transcribe 03-2026, VibeVoice-ASR Streaming 1.5B, VibeVoice-ASR-BitNet, Fun-ASR-MLT-Nano-2512, Voxtral Mini 4B Realtime 2602, Granite Speech 5.0 2B, Granite Speech 5.0 470M TurboCTC, VibeVoice-ASR-Streaming-7B, Parakeet Redux, Whistle and Jais-ASR do not list Hebrew in their reviewed sources; Nemotron 3.5 ASR Streaming 0.6B lists it as adaptation-ready only (fine-tuning required). English-only models are also excluded.
Related
- Language support matrix for all 104 languages
- Best local speech-to-text models for multilingual use
- Measure Hebrew transcripts with the WER calculator
- Compare the top three side by side
Generated from the reviewed model database (latest review November 3, 2026). "Lists Hebrew" means the model's official source explicitly names the language; it does not guarantee equal accuracy across languages.