CMU LTI

by Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon Language Technologies Institute — Sphinx + ESPnet + YODAS origins.

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TL;DR

Best for speech + NLP foundational research; multilingual ASR. Pricing: free.

What it is

CMU LTI shipped CMU Sphinx in 1986, co-founded ESPnet, and built YODAS / WAVLab in 2023-2024. One of the four foundational US speech-research institutions.

Best for: Speech + NLP foundational research; multilingual ASR.
Watch out for: Academic.

Install / use

Go to CMU LTI lti.cs.cmu.edu

Features

Speaker diarization	No
Word-level timestamps	No
Streaming / real-time	No
Languages supported	0
HIPAA eligible	No

Links

GitHub repo ↗

CMU LTI vs Whipscribe

Feature	CMU LTI	Whipscribe
Category	Open source	Transcription APIs
Pricing	free	$4–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · $2 single unlock · 60 min free on signup
Speaker diarization	No	Yes
Word timestamps	No	Yes
Streaming	No	No
Languages	0	99
Platforms	Web	Web, API, MCP

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