Amara

by Participatory Culture Foundation

Open subtitling platform run by the Participatory Culture Foundation.

TL;DR

Open subtitling platform run by the Participatory Culture Foundation.

Best for activist creators, NGOs, and educators who run community-driven subtitling. Pricing: freemium.

What it is

Amara has long been the open-source-flavored subtitling and translation platform — community subtitlers, paid Amara On Demand service, and an editor optimized for collaborative subtitle work.

Best for: Activist creators, NGOs, and educators who run community-driven subtitling.
Watch out for: Community workflows assume volunteer translators.

Install / use

amara.org

Features

Speaker diarization	No
Word-level timestamps	No
Streaming / real-time	No
Languages supported	100
HIPAA eligible	No

Amara vs Whipscribe

Feature	Amara	Whipscribe
Category	Products	Transcription APIs
Pricing	freemium	free beta
Speaker diarization	—	Yes
Word timestamps	—	Yes
Streaming	—	No
Languages	100	99
Platforms	Web	Web, API, MCP

Alternatives to Amara

Otter.ai

Meeting-bot transcription product for Zoom/Meet/Teams.

free / from $10/mo

Rev

Human + AI transcription, highest accuracy tier on the market.

AI from $0.25/min · human from $1.50/min

Descript

Audio/video editor that treats the transcript as the timeline — different product category.

free / from $12/mo

Whipscribe is a managed faster-whisper + whisperX service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.