What is Parakeet in Whisper Notes? Parakeet is the speech model built into Whisper Notes. It is Moondream's Parakeet Ultra, a post-trained version of NVIDIA's Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3, and it transcribes 25 European languages on your iPhone, iPad or Mac with no internet connection.
- 25 languages, detected automatically.
- About 74× real time on a Mac: an hour of audio in under a minute.
- Built in: nothing to download, and it is the default model.
- A live transcript while you record on iPhone, and in the live transcript panel when you record a meeting on Mac, in its 25 languages.
Which languages does Parakeet support?
Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian.
There is no language setting. Parakeet detects the language itself, and in our tests that was more accurate than telling it the language: 10.63% against 11.59% across the 25 languages. Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Cantonese are not on the list. For those, and for the other languages Whisper Notes supports, see Supported Languages.
Is Parakeet more accurate than Whisper?
Than Whisper Small, the Whisper model on iPhone, yes: Parakeet has the lower error rate in all 25 languages. Against Whisper Large V3 Turbo, which runs only on Mac, it is about even: Turbo is lower in 13 languages, most by less than 1.5 points, and Parakeet in the other 12.
| Language | Parakeet | Whisper Large V3 Turbo (Mac) | Whisper Small |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 5.89% | 5.49% | 7.04% |
| German | 3.72% | 4.05% | 8.67% |
| Dutch | 6.91% | 5.69% | 16.75% |
| Polish | 6.34% | 5.45% | 15.81% |
| Russian | 5.72% | 5.13% | 11.37% |
| French | 4.95% | 5.97% | 13.24% |
| Spanish | 3.77% | 3.62% | 6.22% |
| Ukrainian | 5.11% | 6.33% | 17.48% |
| Italian | 2.48% | 2.58% | 7.64% |
| Portuguese | 5.69% | 5.44% | 8.61% |
| Swedish | 13.12% | 8.78% | 21.66% |
| Czech | 10.85% | 11.94% | 38.71% |
| Finnish | 10.03% | 7.11% | 25.91% |
| Slovak | 8.58% | 9.59% | 32.43% |
| Danish | 15.68% | 13.63% | 34.14% |
| Hungarian | 13.63% | 14.59% | 40.65% |
| Greek | 20.96% | 13.94% | 31.64% |
| Romanian | 9.54% | 8.36% | 29.45% |
| Bulgarian | 12.28% | 14.54% | 39.68% |
| Slovenian | 18.49% | 19.15% | 48.54% |
| Estonian | 15.40% | 19.08% | 50.84% |
| Croatian | 12.49% | 11.49% | 33.76% |
| Lithuanian | 18.00% | 23.28% | 67.23% |
| Maltese | 19.19% | 74.35% | 95.68% |
| Latvian | 20.70% | 20.26% | 53.49% |
Word error rate, the share of words transcribed wrong; lower is better. Green marks the lowest in each row. FLEURS read speech on a MacBook Air (M5). Parakeet with automatic language detection, as the app runs it (Parakeet Ultra vs Parakeet V3); Whisper as on Which Model for Your Language?
How fast is Parakeet?
| Model | Speed (× real time) | 1 hour of audio |
|---|---|---|
| Parakeet | about 74× | under a minute |
| Whisper Small | 6.5× | about 9 min |
| Whisper Large V3 Turbo (Mac) | 2.7× | about 22 min |
On a MacBook Air (M5), model processing time only. Whisper speeds as shown on each model's card in the Mac app.
In the Mac app from our website, voice typing uses the same model: hold Fn and speak, and with Parakeet a minute of speech appears at the cursor about a second after you let go.
Where can I use Parakeet?
| iPhone and iPad | Mac App Store version | Mac app from our website | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parakeet | Yes, built in | Yes, built in | Yes, built in |
| Default model | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Name in Settings | Parakeet V3 | Parakeet | Parakeet |
| Works offline | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Requires | iPhone 12 or later, or iPad, with iOS 18 | macOS 14 | Apple silicon, macOS 14 |
| Price | $7.99 once | $7.99 once, the same purchase as the iPhone app | 5,000 words a week free, then $14 once |
Green means available. Every version runs the same Parakeet Ultra weights; the iPhone card keeps the name Parakeet V3. The Mac App Store version also installs on Intel Macs, without SenseVoice, Qwen3-ASR or the fast live transcript; the Mac app from our website needs Apple silicon.
When should I use another model?
- Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Cantonese: SenseVoice Small, on iPhone and Mac. For Mandarin on a Mac, Qwen3-ASR 1.7B is more accurate still (6.49% against SenseVoice Small's 7.69% character error rate).
- A language outside the 25, such as Arabic, Hindi, Turkish or Vietnamese: Whisper, which covers 100 languages; on iPhone that is Whisper Small. On Mac the most accurate model depends on the language: Qwen3-ASR 1.7B for Arabic, Hindi and Vietnamese, Whisper Large V3 Turbo for Turkish. Whisper Models has the result for every language.
- The lowest error rate on a Mac, when waiting longer is fine: Whisper Large V3 Turbo, furthest ahead in Greek, Swedish and Finnish (Greek: 13.94% against 20.96%), or Qwen3-ASR 1.7B for English (4.49% against 5.89%) and German (2.85% against 3.72%). An hour of audio then takes about 22 or 8 minutes instead of under one.
- Parakeet in your own code, or on Windows or Linux: use the model itself, from NVIDIA's parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 or Moondream's parakeet-ultra page. Whisper Notes is an app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
To switch models on Mac, open Settings and click a card under Transcription Model. On iPhone, open Settings → Transcription Models.
What is Parakeet Ultra?
| Parakeet Ultra | |
|---|---|
| Maker | Moondream |
| Based on | NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 |
| Released | September 22, 2026 |
| Size | 0.6 billion parameters; about 630 MB in the app |
| Languages | The same 25 as Parakeet V3 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 (model page) |
| Runs on | The Apple Neural Engine, as Fluid Inference's Core ML conversion |
Since October 2026 the built-in model is Parakeet Ultra instead of Parakeet V3. Across the 25 languages it makes about 24% fewer mistakes (10.63% against 13.99% word error rate) at the same speed. The full comparison: Parakeet Ultra vs Parakeet V3. How Parakeet V3 compared with Whisper when it first became the default: Parakeet V3 vs Whisper.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Parakeet better than Whisper?
For the 25 languages it supports, Parakeet is much faster than Whisper and has a lower error rate than Whisper Small in every one of them. Whisper Large V3 Turbo on Mac has the lower error rate in 13 of the 25, most by less than 1.5 points, but takes about 22 minutes for an hour of audio against under a minute. Whisper covers 100 languages.
Does Parakeet work on iPhone?
Yes. It is built into the iPhone and iPad app and is the default model; in Settings it is listed as Parakeet V3. It transcribes on the device with no internet connection.
Can I set the language for Parakeet?
No. Parakeet detects the language itself. In our tests, telling it the language made it less accurate: 11.59% against 10.63% word error rate across 25 languages.
Does Parakeet support Chinese, Japanese or Korean?
No. Use SenseVoice Small for Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean on iPhone and Mac, or Qwen3-ASR 1.7B for Mandarin on Mac.
Download for iOS