Yes, FunASR is an open-source project released under the MIT/Apache license, meaning it is free for both research and commercial use.

How does FunASR compare to Whisper?

FunASR's models (like Paraformer and SenseVoice) are often faster than OpenAI's Whisper (especially for real-time streaming) and offer superior performance for Mandarin and Chinese dialects, though Whisper may still have an edge in rare low-resource languages.

Can FunASR run offline?

Yes, one of its primary strengths is that it can be deployed entirely offline on local servers or edge devices, ensuring data privacy and zero cloud dependency.

Does it support English?

Yes, FunASR includes high-quality pre-trained models for English (e.g., paraformer-en) and supports mixed Chinese-English speech recognition.

FunASR

A Fundamental End-to-End Speech Recognition Toolkit.

From Alibaba Group

Founder: Tongyi Lab

Audio & Music

May 2023

15K+

Free

Pricing Model

Free

Starting Price

$0/Month

About This AI

FunASR is a comprehensive open-source speech recognition toolkit developed by Alibaba’s DAMO Academy to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial deployment.

It provides a suite of state-of-the-art models, including the flagship “Paraformer” (non-autoregressive ASR) and “SenseVoice,” which deliver high-accuracy transcription with extremely low latency.

Designed for developers, it supports a full pipeline of speech tasks from voice activity detection (VAD) to punctuation restoration and is widely used for building custom, privacy-focused speech services for enterprises.

Audio Editor Conversation Text To Audio Text To Speech Voice Cloning Voice Design

Pricing

Pricing Model

Free

Starting Price

$0/Month

Key Features

Industrial-Grade Models: Features the Paraformer model, which is non-autoregressive and significantly faster than traditional models while maintaining high accuracy.
Full Speech Pipeline: Includes pre-trained models for ASR, Voice Activity Detection (VAD), Punctuation Restoration, Speaker Verification, and Diarization.
Real-Time Transcription: Supports streaming ASR for live applications with granular latency control (e.g., 600ms chunks).
Multilingual Support: Covers over 30 languages with specific optimizations for Mandarin, English, and Chinese dialects (Cantonese, Wu, etc.).
Deployment Ready: Offers export tools for ONNX and TensorRT, plus C++ and Python runtimes for easy server or edge deployment.
Hotword Customization: Allows users to boost specific terms (names, technical jargon) to improve recognition accuracy in specialized domains.

Pros

Completely free and open-source (MIT/Apache license).
Extremely fast inference speeds (up to 15x faster than Whisper-Large).
Comprehensive "all-in-one" toolkit for speech tasks.
Highly accurate for Mandarin and mixed Chinese-English speech.
Runs efficiently on standard CPUs and GPUs.

Cons

Setup requires technical knowledge (Python, Docker, Command Line).
Documentation and community support are heavily skewed towards Mandarin speakers.
Less "out-of-the-box" polish compared to paid APIs like OpenAI or Google.

Best for Developers, AI researchers, and companies looking to build their own high-performance, cost-effective speech recognition systems without relying on paid cloud APIs.

FAQs

Is FunASR free?
Yes, FunASR is an open-source project released under the MIT/Apache license, meaning it is free for both research and commercial use.
How does FunASR compare to Whisper?
FunASR’s models (like Paraformer and SenseVoice) are often faster than OpenAI’s Whisper (especially for real-time streaming) and offer superior performance for Mandarin and Chinese dialects, though Whisper may still have an edge in rare low-resource languages.
Can FunASR run offline?
Yes, one of its primary strengths is that it can be deployed entirely offline on local servers or edge devices, ensuring data privacy and zero cloud dependency.
Does it support English?
Yes, FunASR includes high-quality pre-trained models for English (e.g., paraformer-en) and supports mixed Chinese-English speech recognition.