Picovoice Cheetah
Don’t want to install Picovoice Cheetah? 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.
On-device streaming speech-to-text optimized for embedded and edge.
Best for on-device streaming STT for voice assistants, wearables, hearing aids, kiosks. Pricing: Free tier + per-user/Enterprise plans.
What it is
Picovoice Cheetah is an on-device streaming speech-to-text engine designed to run within tight CPU/RAM budgets, including microcontroller-class hardware. It supports incremental partial transcripts, word timestamps, and a fixed inventory of languages. Picovoice's other relevant products include Leopard (offline batch STT), Porcupine (wake word) and Falcon (speaker diarization). Pricing is access-key-based with a free non-commercial tier and paid enterprise plans. Best fit: on-device streaming stt for voice assistants, wearables, hearing aids, kiosks. Caveats: vocabulary and language coverage smaller than cloud apis; requires picovoice access key. Pricing as listed: Free tier + per-user/Enterprise plans. Feature flags from vendor docs: word-level timestamps, streaming. Directory tags: embedded, on-device. Last vendor-page check: 2026-05-12.
Watch out for: Vocabulary and language coverage smaller than cloud APIs; requires Picovoice access key.
Install / use
pip install pvcheetah # or platform SDK
What people actually do with Picovoice Cheetah-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 | Yes |
| Streaming / real-time | Yes |
| Languages supported | 7 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
Picovoice Cheetah vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Picovoice Cheetah | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Products | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | Not verified | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | Not verified | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | Not verified | Yes |
| Streaming | Not verified | No |
| Languages | 7 | 99 |
| Platforms | Edge, SDK, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, macOS | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Picovoice Cheetah
Frequently asked about Picovoice Cheetah
How much does Picovoice Cheetah cost?
Picovoice Cheetah does not publish a self-serve price — it is quoted by the vendor on contact. Expect an enterprise-style agreement rather than a card-and-go signup.
Does Picovoice Cheetah work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
Picovoice Cheetah runs on Edge, SDK, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows and macOS.
How many languages does Picovoice Cheetah support?
Picovoice Cheetah lists 7 languages.
What are the limitations of Picovoice Cheetah?
Vocabulary and language coverage smaller than cloud APIs; requires Picovoice access key.
Who is Picovoice Cheetah best for?
On-device streaming STT for voice assistants, wearables, hearing aids, kiosks.
Is Picovoice Cheetah open source?
No. Picovoice Cheetah is a proprietary product. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.
Can I use Picovoice Cheetah in the browser?
No — Picovoice Cheetah is a Edge, SDK, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows and macOS application, not a web app. You install it rather than sign in to it.
What kind of tool is Picovoice Cheetah?
In this directory Picovoice Cheetah is filed under embedded, on device as a product.
What are the alternatives to Picovoice Cheetah?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/picovoice-cheetah-alternatives comparing Picovoice Cheetah with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate Picovoice Cheetah-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 Picovoice Cheetah?
Picovoice Cheetah is another vendor's product; Whipscribe is a per-minute transcription service. 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.
What does transcription cost if I use Whipscribe instead of Picovoice Cheetah?
$0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16, a thousand-hour archive is about $720 once. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, so you can see what your recording holds before paying anything.
Where is the Picovoice Cheetah category heading?
Three things are moving across the whole speech-to-text market right now: summaries, action items and speaker insights generated on top of the transcript rather than sold separately; private, secured deployment where the audio never leaves a boundary you control; and agent access — transcription exposed as a tool that Claude, Cursor or a workflow runner can call directly. Whipscribe ships all three today: per-job insights, our own servers, and an MCP server.
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.
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