HuggingFace Candle

by Hugging Face

Minimalist Rust ML framework with Whisper support.

Looking at HuggingFace Candle? Try this first.

Drop your audio. Transcript in seconds. First transcript free, then $4 = 300 min

TL;DR

Best for embedding ASR into Rust apps + WASM/WebGPU deployment. Pricing: free.

Category
Open source
License
Apache-2.0
Stars
★ 20.9k
Last push
2026-08-06
Pricing
free
Platforms
Linux, macOS, Windows, Web

What it is

A minimalist ML framework written in Rust. Apache-2.0.

Best for: Embedding ASR into Rust apps + WASM/WebGPU deployment.
Watch out for: Some kernels still PyTorch-only.

Install / use

cargo add candle-core candle-transformers

Features

Speaker diarizationNo
Word-level timestampsYes
Streaming / real-timeNo
Languages supported99
HIPAA eligibleNo

Links

GitHub repo ↗

HuggingFace Candle vs Whipscribe

FeatureHuggingFace CandleWhipscribe
CategoryOpen sourceTranscription APIs
Pricingfree$4–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · $2 single unlock · 60 min free on signup
Speaker diarizationNoYes
Word timestampsYesYes
StreamingNoNo
Languages9999
PlatformsLinux, macOS, Windows, WebWeb, API, MCP

Alternatives to HuggingFace Candle

OpenAI Whisper
OpenAI

The reference open-source multilingual ASR model from OpenAI.

OSS · MIT ★ 107.0k
whisper.cpp
Georgi Gerganov

C/C++ port of Whisper — runs on anything, from a Raspberry Pi to Apple Silicon.

OSS · MIT ★ 52.8k
faster-whisper
SYSTRAN

4× faster than reference Whisper using CTranslate2 — production sweet spot.

OSS · MIT ★ 24.8k

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.