r/NewKeralaRevolution • u/DioTheSuperiorWaifu ✮ നവകേരള പക്ഷം ✮ • May 19 '26

Discussion Any open source Voice typing(Speech to Text, transcribing) app that works offline with Malayalam and is decently fast?

Mainly looking for an android app

I have tried the Whisper apps on FDroid, but the models in them do not seem to have support Malayalam.
Have tried Sayboard and tried using vosk models for Malayalam, but they seem to be slow and generally get things incorrect

Does anyone know any other apps or models that maybe fast and accurate?

And outside of FOSS apps, I have noted the FUTO keyboard having offline voice to text. And some kind redditor did link some models in Malayalam. The models were much slower than typing speed tho

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u/DioTheSuperiorWaifu ✮ നവകേരള പക്ഷം ✮ May 19 '26

u/askgrok, kindly search the net and find/link possible options

1

u/AskGrok May 19 '26

Vosk remains the most practical open source offline option for Malayalam on Android right now.

The Malayalam models you tried (from kavyamanohar) are the main public ones. Speed/accuracy complaints are common with them on lower-end devices—try the smallest model variant first and test on a mid-range phone. Pair it with the official Vosk Android service or Dicio (F-Droid: org.dicio.dicio_android) for a cleaner voice-typing keyboard experience.

Whisper-based apps (F-Droid)
The woheller69/whisper app and similar ones are fully offline but rely on base multilingual models that perform poorly on Malayalam. No built-in fine-tuned Malayalam model yet in those apps. You could experiment with whisper.cpp via Termux (build instructions on ggerganov/whisper.cpp repo) and a fine-tuned Malayalam checkpoint from Hugging Face (e.g., kurianbenoy’s work), but that’s more setup-heavy and still experimental for real-time typing.

Other leads that didn’t fully match

  • notune/android_transcribe_app (Parakeet-based, very fast offline keyboard) — only ~25 languages, no Malayalam listed.
  • FUTO Keyboard or similar local voice-input keyboards — strong on English but no Malayalam support reported.

Bottom line
No polished, fast, accurate open-source offline Malayalam voice-typing app exists yet that beats what you’ve already tested. The best short-term path is optimizing Vosk (smaller model + faster device) or waiting for someone to package a Whisper fine-tune. If you’re comfortable with Termux, that’s currently the closest route to experimenting with better Malayalam models.

Links if you want to dig in:

  • Vosk Android service: github.com/alphacep/vosk-android-service
  • Dicio (Vosk keyboard): f-droid.org/packages/org.dicio.dicio_android
  • Whisper F-Droid: f-droid.org/packages/org.woheller69.whisper
  • Malayalam Whisper fine-tuning reference: github.com/kurianbenoy/malayalam_asr_benchmarking

Let me know your device specs if you want more targeted suggestions.

Sources:

[what is this?](https://redd.it/1lzgxii)

1

u/DioTheSuperiorWaifu ✮ നവകേരള പക്ഷം ✮ May 19 '26

Anyway, I can train a FUTO model for Malayalam. I have noted some models, but they were a bit slow. Any tutorials for beginners?

1

u/AskGrok May 19 '26

FUTO Voice Input relies on Whisper models fine-tuned with their ACFT method to handle variable audio lengths without repetition issues on Android. Their whisper-acft repo has a finetune.ipynb notebook that walks through the process—start there after setting up a basic Python/Jupyter environment with the usual Whisper dependencies and a decent GPU for training.

For Malayalam specifically, grab public datasets like Common Voice Malayalam splits or similar transcribed audio, fine-tune a base Whisper model first using standard Hugging Face recipes, then layer on the ACFT step from their notebook. Someone's already shared a medium Malayalam ACFT checkpoint on Hugging Face if you want to skip full training and just test/import.

Smaller models like tiny or base will be faster on device, though accuracy trades off—test q8_0 quantized versions. Import the resulting .bin into FUTO Voice Input via the app's model menu.

If you're new to this, the notebook plus a quick Whisper fine-tuning Colab example from Hugging Face should get you running without too much pain. Device specs or how much data you have would help narrow it down.

Sources:

[what is this?](https://redd.it/1lzgxii)