Kathbath
by AI4Bharat (IIT Madras)
1684h read-speech ASR benchmark across 12 Indian languages.
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TL;DR
Best for indic ASR evaluation with consistent splits across 12 languages. Pricing: free.
Category
Open source
License
MIT
Stars
★ 118
Last push
2025-08-28
Pricing
free
Platforms
HuggingFace, GitHub
What it is
Kathbath is a 1684-hour benchmark across 12 Indian languages, crowd-sourced via smartphones. Evaluation companion to IndicSUPERB. License: CC BY 4.0.
Best for: Indic ASR evaluation with consistent splits across 12 languages.
Watch out for: CC BY 4.0 · read speech bias (smartphone-recorded). Cite: Javed et al., 2022.
Watch out for: CC BY 4.0 · read speech bias (smartphone-recorded). Cite: Javed et al., 2022.
Install / use
from datasets import load_dataset; ds = load_dataset('ai4bharat/kathbath')Features
| Speaker diarization | No |
| Word-level timestamps | No |
| Streaming / real-time | No |
| Languages supported | 12 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
Links
Kathbath vs Whipscribe
| Feature | Kathbath | 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 | 12 | 99 |
| Platforms | HuggingFace, GitHub | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to Kathbath
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