Meta FAIR Speech
Don’t want to install Meta FAIR Speech? Drop the file here.
The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.
Meta AI speech research — wav2vec 2.0 + HuBERT + MMS + Seamless origins.
Upstream is archived. Meta FAIR Speech’s repository has been set read-only by its owner, so there are no further releases, fixes, or security patches. The last commit landed 2025-09-30. It can still be cloned and run, and forks may be maintained elsewhere. See the repository.
Best for self-supervised speech + multilingual ASR + speech translation at frontier scale. Pricing: free.
What it is
Meta FAIR Speech released wav2vec 2.0, HuBERT, data2vec, XLS-R, MMS (1100+ languages), Seamless, and SeamlessM4T. The industry frontier for open multilingual speech.
Watch out for: MIT (fairseq) · per-model licenses vary (MMS = CC-BY-NC-4.0, Seamless = research) — check release.
Install / use
What people actually do with Meta FAIR Speech-style transcription
The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.
Features
| Speaker diarization | No |
| Word-level timestamps | No |
| Streaming / real-time | No |
| Languages supported | 1100 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
Links
Meta FAIR Speech vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Meta FAIR Speech | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Open source | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | free | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | No | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | No | Yes |
| Streaming | No | No |
| Languages | 1100 | 99 |
| Platforms | Web, GitHub | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Meta FAIR Speech
Frequently asked about Meta FAIR Speech
Is Meta FAIR Speech free?
Yes. Meta FAIR Speech is free and open source.
Does Meta FAIR Speech work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
Meta FAIR Speech runs on Web and GitHub. It is not listed for other platforms; check the vendor for anything beyond Web and GitHub.
How many languages does Meta FAIR Speech support?
Meta FAIR Speech lists 1100 languages. That is the Whisper-family multilingual set, so quality varies by language — English and the large European languages are strongest.
Does Meta FAIR Speech identify different speakers?
No. Meta FAIR Speech does not label speakers; a conversation comes back as one continuous text. If you need speaker labels, that is a separate tool or a different service.
Does Meta FAIR Speech give word-level timestamps?
No — Meta FAIR Speech produces segment or sentence timing only, so subtitle cues can land mid-word.
Can Meta FAIR Speech transcribe live audio?
No — Meta FAIR Speech works on finished files, not a live stream.
Is Meta FAIR Speech HIPAA compliant?
Meta FAIR Speech does not claim HIPAA compliance. For PHI, run it on infrastructure you control or choose a service that will sign a BAA.
What are the limitations of Meta FAIR Speech?
MIT (fairseq) · per-model licenses vary (MMS = CC-BY-NC-4.0, Seamless = research) — check release.
Who is Meta FAIR Speech best for?
Self-supervised speech + multilingual ASR + speech translation at frontier scale.
Does Meta FAIR Speech run offline?
Meta FAIR Speech runs on your own machine — it is open source, so nothing leaves the computer unless you configure it to.
Where is the Meta FAIR Speech source code?
On GitHub at github.com/facebookresearch/fairseq. It is maintained by Meta AI / FAIR.
What kind of tool is Meta FAIR Speech?
In this directory Meta FAIR Speech is filed under research lab as a open-source tool.
What are the alternatives to Meta FAIR Speech?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/fair-speech-alternatives comparing Meta FAIR Speech with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate Meta FAIR Speech-style transcription without running it myself?
Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.
How is Whipscribe different from Meta FAIR Speech?
Meta FAIR Speech is something you run; Whipscribe is something you call. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and every job returns five formats plus an AI summary, quotes and topics. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export.
Whipscribe is a hosted transcription 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.
Transcribe your recordings
Running Meta FAIR Speech yourself? Send the same file here and compare the transcript. Transcribe any language, any recording · Transcription services from $0.29 an hour · Transcribe from any meeting or recording platform · How to transcribe, step by step
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Have the recording already?
Skip the setup and send the file or the link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, how to transcribe a podcast and the SRT file generator.
Looking at paid options?
Before you choose a transcription tool or service: see how the best transcription services compare, cheap transcription services and the real cost per hour and how our transcription services work.