List of speech recognition software
software is available for many computing platforms, operating systems, use models, and software licenses. Here is a listing of such, grouped in various useful ways.
Acoustic models and speech corpus (compilation)
The following list presents notable speech recognition software engines with a brief synopsis of characteristics.Application name | Description | Open-source | License | Operating system | Programming language | Supported language, note | Offline or online |
CMU Sphinx | HMM | BSD style | Cross-platform | Java | English, German, French, Mandarin, Russian | Offline | |
HTK | HMM neural net | HTK specific | Cross-platform | C | English; version 3.5 released December 2015 | ||
Julius | HMM trigrams | BSD style, non-commercial | Cross-platform | C | Japanese, English; | Offline | |
Kaldi | Neural net | Apache | Cross-platform | C++ | English | ||
RWTH ASR | RWTH Aachen University | RWTH ASR, non-commercial use only | Linux, macOS | C++ | English |
Macintosh
Cross-platform web apps
Temi.comEbby.co
Sonix.ai
Simonsays.ai
Cross-platform web apps based on Chrome
The following list presents notable speech recognition software that operate in a Chrome browser as web apps. They make use of HTML5 Web-Speech-API.Mobile devices and smartphones
Many mobile phone handsets, including feature phones and smartphones such as iPhones and BlackBerrys, have basic dial-by-voice features built in. Many third-party apps have implemented natural-language speech recognition support, including:Application name | Description | Open-source | License | Price | Note |
Assistant.ai | Assistant for Android, iOS and Windows Phone | , freeware | Free | Discontinued | |
Dragon Dictation | , freeware | Free | |||
Google Now | Android voice search | , freeware | Free | ||
Google Voice Search | , freeware | Free | |||
Microsoft Cortana | Microsoft voice search | , freeware | Free | ||
Siri Personal Assistant | Apple's virtual personal assistant | , freeware | Free | ||
Alexa – Amazon Echo | Amazon's personal assistant | ||||
SILVIA | Android and iOS | ||||
Vlingo |
Windows
Windows built-in speech recognition
The Windows Speech Recognition version 8.0 by Microsoft comes built into Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.Speech Recognition is available only in English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese and only in the corresponding version of Windows; meaning you cannot use the speech recognition engine in one language if you use a version of Windows in another language. Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows 8 Pro allow you to change the system language, and therefore change which speech engine is available. Windows Speech Recognition evolved into Cortana, a personal assistant included in Windows 10.
Add-ons for Windows 7 speech recognition
- Voice Finger – software for Windows Vista and Windows 7 that improves the Windows speech recognition system by adding several extensions to accelerate and improve the mouse and keyboard control.
Windows 7, 8, 10 third-party speech recognition
- Braina – Dictate into third party software and websites, fill web forms and execute vocal commands.
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance Communications – Successor to the older DragonDictate product. Focus on dictation. 64-bit Windows support since version 10.1.
- SpeechMagic – Nuance Communications acquired Philips owned. Medical industry focus according to Frost & Sullivan. Standalone or embedded.
- Tazti – Create speech command profiles to play PC games and control applications – programs. Create speech commands to open files, folders, webpages, applications. Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 versions.
Windows XP or 2000 only
- Microsoft Speech API – Speech recognition functionality included as part of Microsoft Office and on Tablet PCs running Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition. It can also be downloaded as part of the Speech SDK 5.1 for Windows applications, but since that is aimed at developers building speech applications, the pure SDK form lacks any user interface, and thus is unsuitable for end users.
Built-in software
- Microsoft Kinect includes built-in software which allows speech recognition of commands.
- Older generations of Nokia phones like Nokia N Series used speech-recognition with family names from contact list and a few commands.
- Siri, originally implemented in the iPhone 4S, Apple's personal assistant for iOS, which uses technology from Nuance Communications.
- Cortana, Microsoft's personal assistant built into Windows Phone and Windows 10.
Interactive voice response
- CSLU Toolkit
- Genesys
- HTK – copyrighted by Microsoft, but allows altering software for licensee's internal use
- LumenVox ASR
- Tellme Networks; acquired by Microsoft
Unix-like x86 and x86-64 speech transcription software
- Janus Recognition Toolkit
Discontinued software
- IBM ViaVoice – Embedded version still maintained by IBM. No longer supported for versions above Windows Vista. Untested above macOS 10.4 or on Macintoshes with an Intel chipset.
- Quack.com; acquired by AOL; the name has now been reused for an iPad search app.
- SpeechWorks from Nuance Communications.
- Yap Speech Cloud – Speech-to-text platform acquired by Amazon.com.