---
license: apache-2.0
base_model: openai/whisper-small
pipeline_tag: automatic-speech-recognition
library_name: openasr
tags:
  - automatic-speech-recognition
  - speech-to-text
  - openasr
  - oasr
  - whisper-small
---

<div align="center">

# Whisper Small · OpenASR

**Compact multilingual Whisper for local transcription**

[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache--2.0-2563eb.svg)](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small/blob/main/README.md)
[![Format](https://img.shields.io/badge/format-.oasr-7c3aed.svg)](https://github.com/QuintinShaw/openasr)
[![Runtime](https://img.shields.io/badge/runtime-OpenASR-111827.svg)](https://openasr.org)
[![Base model](https://img.shields.io/badge/base-whisper--small-f59e0b.svg)](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small)

Native speech-to-text in the **[OpenASR](https://github.com/QuintinShaw/openasr)** runtime —
engineered for peak performance on CPU & GPU, **no Python at inference time**.

</div>

---

## ✨ Highlights

- 🎧 **Multilingual ASR** — transcribes many languages and can translate speech to English
- 🧠 **244M parameters** — the small Whisper checkpoint balances accuracy, footprint, and speed
- 🌐 **Weak-supervision scale** — trained with Whisper's 680k-hour labelled speech corpus
- 🦀 **Native in OpenASR** — `.oasr` packs run with no Python at inference, engineered for peak performance on CPU & GPU

## 🚀 Quickstart

```bash
# 1. Install the OpenASR CLI  ·  https://openasr.org
# 2. Pull a build (pick a quant — see the table below)
openasr pull whisper-small:q8

# 3. Transcribe
openasr transcribe audio.wav --model whisper-small
```

All builds for this model:

```bash
openasr pull whisper-small:fp16
openasr pull whisper-small:q8
openasr pull whisper-small:q4
```

## 📦 Available builds

| Quant | File (`.oasr`) | Size | RAM peak | RTF · M1 CPU | RTF · M1 GPU | JFK ΔWER vs fp16 |
|:------|:---------------|-----:|---------:|-------------:|-------------:|-----------------:|
| fp16 | `whisper-small-fp16.oasr` | 489 MB | 1.57 GB | 0.13× | 0.08× | 0.0% |
| q8_0 | `whisper-small-q8_0.oasr` | 303 MB | 881 MB | 0.11× | 0.07× | 0.0% |
| q4_k | `whisper-small-q4_k.oasr` | 204 MB | 665 MB | 0.10× | 0.07× | 0.0% |

<sub>RTF = real-time factor on the fixed 11s JFK clip (**lower is faster**); RAM peak measured per pack
in an isolated subprocess. JFK ΔWER compares each quantized build's JFK transcript to this model's
fp16 JFK transcript, so it measures quantization drift rather than absolute recognition accuracy.
**q8_0** is the recommended default — near-reference quality at a fraction of the
footprint.</sub>

## 🧠 About Whisper Small

Whisper Small is OpenAI's 244M-parameter multilingual Whisper checkpoint. It uses the
standard Whisper encoder-decoder architecture for automatic speech recognition and speech
translation, trained with large-scale weak supervision on 680k hours of labelled speech.
Compared with larger Whisper checkpoints, the small model is easier to run locally while
retaining the broad zero-shot behavior that makes Whisper useful across noisy datasets and
domains. This OpenASR repo repackages the original `openai/whisper-small` weights as
`.oasr` packs that run natively in the OpenASR runtime with no Python at inference time.
For most users the q8_0 build is the recommended default; q4_k is for tighter memory
budgets and fp16 is for verification or maximum fidelity.

## ⚙️ How these packs were made

Converted from [openai/whisper-small](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small) with the OpenASR importer:

```bash
openasr model-pack import-whisper-local <src> <out>.oasr \
  --package-id whisper-small --quantization {fp16,q8-0,q4-k}
```

The `.oasr` container is GGUF-backed; packs use zero-copy mmap weight binding and graph
buffer reuse to keep peak memory low.

## ⚖️ License

These packs **inherit the upstream model's license: Apache-2.0**
([source](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small/blob/main/README.md)). OpenASR packaging retains the upstream copyright and
NOTICE; the only modifications are format conversion and quantization.

## 🙏 Acknowledgements

This pack is a redistribution of **Whisper Small**, released by **OpenAI**
([openai/whisper-small](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small)).
All credit for the original model, training recipe, and weights belongs to OpenAI. The
upstream Hugging Face model card declares Apache-2.0 licensing; OpenASR only converts the
weights into `.oasr` packages and adds quantized builds for local runtime use.

## 🔗 Links

- 🦀 **OpenASR** — <https://github.com/QuintinShaw/openasr>
- 🌐 **Website** — <https://openasr.org>
- 🤗 **Upstream model** — [openai/whisper-small](https://huggingface.co/openai/whisper-small)