Silero VAD detects which parts of an audio stream contain speech, in under a millisecond per chunk — essential for real-time voice pipelines.
| Category | Speech (STT / TTS) |
| Type | Voice activity detection |
| License | MIT |
| Runs locally | Yes |
| Built with | Python |
| Skill level | Beginner |
| Best for | real-time voice assistants |
Other open-source speech (stt / tts) tools worth comparing:
WhisperOpenAI's open speech-to-text baseline
faster-whisperWhisper, much faster and lighter
WhisperXWhisper plus word timestamps and diarization
PiperFast, local neural text-to-speech
Coqui TTSDeep-learning TTS with voice cloning
BarkText-to-audio with voices and effects
F5-TTSZero-shot voice cloning that actually convinces
KokoroTiny 82M TTS with astonishing quality
whisper.cppWhisper in pure C/C++, runs anywhere
OpenVoiceClone a voice and control its emotion
StyleTTS 2Human-level speech synthesis
pyannote.audioKnow who spoke whenSilero VAD is free and open-source (MIT license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.
Yes. Silero VAD is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.
Popular open-source alternatives include Whisper, faster-whisper, WhisperX. See the comparisons above to choose.
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