YODAS
Don’t want to install YODAS? 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.
500kh of YouTube speech across 100+ languages with CC-licensed subtitles.
Best for massive multilingual self-supervised pretraining; ASR pretraining for low-resource languages. Pricing: research-only.
What it is
YODAS (YouTube-Oriented Dataset for Audio and Speech) provides ~500k hours of speech across 140+ languages with CC-licensed subtitles, harvested from YouTube. The largest open multilingual speech corpus to date.
Watch out for: CC BY 3.0 (subtitles) but underlying YouTube videos are individually-licensed · video access subject to YouTube TOS · per-language quality varies hugely. Cite: Li et al., ASRU 2023.
Install / use
from datasets import load_dataset; ds = load_dataset('espnet/yodas', 'en000')What people actually do with YODAS-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 | No |
| Languages supported | 140 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
YODAS vs Whipscribe
| Feature | YODAS | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Open source | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | research-only | $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 | Yes | Yes |
| Streaming | No | No |
| Languages | 140 | 99 |
| Platforms | HuggingFace | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to YODAS
Frequently asked about YODAS
Does YODAS work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
YODAS runs on HuggingFace. It is not listed for other platforms; check the vendor for anything beyond HuggingFace.
How do I install YODAS?
Download the installer for your platform from the vendor. No terminal needed.
How many languages does YODAS support?
YODAS lists 140 languages. That is the Whisper-family multilingual set, so quality varies by language — English and the large European languages are strongest.
Does YODAS identify different speakers?
No. YODAS 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 YODAS give word-level timestamps?
Yes — YODAS produces timing per word, which is what subtitle cues and clip boundaries need.
Can YODAS transcribe live audio?
No — YODAS works on finished files, not a live stream.
Is YODAS HIPAA compliant?
YODAS 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 YODAS?
CC BY 3.0 (subtitles) but underlying YouTube videos are individually-licensed · video access subject to YouTube TOS · per-language quality varies hugely. Cite: Li et al., ASRU 2023.
Who is YODAS best for?
Massive multilingual self-supervised pretraining; ASR pretraining for low-resource languages.
Does YODAS run offline?
YODAS runs on your own machine — it is open source, so nothing leaves the computer unless you configure it to.
Can I use YODAS in the browser?
No — YODAS is a HuggingFace application, not a web app. You install it rather than sign in to it.
Where is the YODAS source code?
On GitHub at github.com/espnet/yodas. It is maintained by CMU / WAVLab.
What kind of tool is YODAS?
In this directory YODAS is filed under dataset as a open-source tool.
What are the alternatives to YODAS?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/yodas-alternatives comparing YODAS with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate YODAS-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.
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 YODAS 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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Working from a YouTube link?
Paste it and get the text or the subtitle file: see the YouTube transcript generator, the YouTube to SRT page and transcribing a podcast episode.
Rather have it done for you?
Free tools cost setup time. When you want a finished transcript instead: see how the best transcription services compare, the cheapest way to transcribe an hour of audio and how our transcription services work.