inference/research
verifiedhigh · 0.90updated 2026-10-04

OpenAI Whisper (reference implementation)

cuda, cpu-avx512, cpu-avx2

Fields

id
engines/openai-whisper
Repo
openai/whisper
Languages
Python
License
MIT
First release
2022
Design goal
reference-implementationresearchmultilingualrobustness
Scheduling
none
Backends
cudacpu-avx512cpu-avx2
Formats
safetensors
Notable features
Official OpenAI implementation of WhisperReference for accuracy comparisonsSupports all Whisper variantsMultilingual transcription and translationTimestamp generation
Hardware caveats
Significantly slower than optimized implementations (up to 4x slower than faster-whisper)No Metal, Vulkan, or ROCm support -- CUDA or CPU onlyNo batched transcription pipelineNo int8 quantization
Best for
Research and accuracy comparisonsUnderstanding the reference algorithmFine-tuning and experimentation
Avoid for
Production inference (use faster-whisper or whisper.cpp instead)Batch transcription (use faster-whisper instead)Cross-platform deployment (use whisper.cpp instead)
Docs
https://github.com/openai/whisper
notes
OpenAI's official Whisper implementation in Python/PyTorch. This is the reference implementation that all other implementations are compared against. It is the slowest option but serves as the accuracy baseline. The project is maintained but receives fewer updates than faster-whisper or whisper.cpp. ||| MAINTENANCE (dated fact, GitHub API, 2026-10-04): last commit 2026-08-31 (1.1 months before this record), latest release v20250625 published 2025-06-26, 84 contributors (distinct committers including anonymous), open_issues_count 160 (issues PLUS pull requests - see [[ev-github-open-issues-count-includes-pull-requests]]), not archived, 109967 stars. See [[ev-maintenance-status-is-four-dated-facts]] for how to read this fact set.

Notes

OpenAI's official Whisper implementation in Python/PyTorch. This is the reference implementation that all other implementations are compared against. It is the slowest option but serves as the accuracy baseline. The project is maintained but receives fewer updates than faster-whisper or whisper.cpp. ||| MAINTENANCE (dated fact, GitHub API, 2026-10-04): last commit 2026-08-31 (1.1 months before this record), latest release v20250625 published 2025-06-26, 84 contributors (distinct committers including anonymous), open_issues_count 160 (issues PLUS pull requests - see [[ev-github-open-issues-count-includes-pull-requests]]), not archived, 109967 stars. See [[ev-maintenance-status-is-four-dated-facts]] for how to read this fact set.

Cross-references

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