Best ElevenLabs alternatives for speech-to-text: Gladia, Deepgram, AssemblyAI compared

Published on April 17, 2026, by Ani Ghazaryan, the text compares the capabilities and limitations of ElevenLabs and its alternatives—Gladia, Deepgram, and AssemblyAI—for speech-to-text (STT) applications. ElevenLabs, known for text-to-speech, faces challenges in STT, such as limited multi-channel support, no native code-switching, and additional charges for essential features. Gladia excels in multilingual STT, offering comprehensive features like diarization and translation within its base rate, while Deepgram specializes in low-latency real-time streaming, ideal for voice agents. AssemblyAI, focusing on English-first enterprise solutions, provides strong diarization in asynchronous workflows. The text highlights the importance of evaluating total cost of ownership, feature availability, and real-world performance metrics like word error rate (WER) and diarization error rate (DER). It underscores the hidden costs associated with add-ons in STT services and advocates for thorough testing with real-world audio samples to assess vendor capabilities accurately.

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