# Qwen3-ASR 1.7B

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Qwen3-ASR 1.7B and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend this open speech-to-text model for accurate transcription that runs fast on local hardware, including laptops and Apple Silicon. Critics say it is only good for English.

## Why people recommend it

- Accurate transcription, close to Whisper Large (5 comments): "I'm quite happy with how it performs (both transcription quality and speed on rtx5080)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50013705)) "it's the second most accurate open model after the one in this post" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280204)) "I found Qwen ASR and QwenTTS to be quite good, and not too large." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50169419))
- Fast and runs on ordinary laptops (3 comments): "I'm quite happy with how it performs (both transcription quality and speed on rtx5080)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50013705)) "Qwen-asr can easily transcribe live radio (see README) in any random laptop." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47177999)) "Qwen ASR is faster than OpenAI Whisper on Apple Silicon from my tests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404700))
- Beats Whisper and Parakeet for some users (3 comments): "Qwen ASR is faster than OpenAI Whisper on Apple Silicon from my tests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404700)) "it seems to work very well, at least as well as Whisper Large" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017680)) "I find Parakeet or Qwen ASR better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50280418))
- Pure Swift on MLX, no Python (2 comments): "No Python, no server, no CoreML — pure Swift through MLX." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47228958)) "bundles ASR, TTS, and PersonaPlex in one Swift package" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47266190))

## What people warn about

- Weaker outside English (2 comments): "Qwen ASR (very good, but only for English)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49081002)) "not as good for others (like qwen ASR)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47408215))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [OpenAI Whisper](https://hackerapproved.com/p/whisper.md): 164 recommend
- [NVIDIA Parakeet](https://hackerapproved.com/p/parakeet.md): 144 recommend
- [Mistral Voxtral](https://hackerapproved.com/p/voxtral-transcribe-2.md): 69 recommend
- [Moonshine open-weights STT models](https://hackerapproved.com/p/moonshine.md): 37 recommend
- [whisper.cpp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/whisper-cpp.md): 33 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Qwen3-ASR 1.7B", https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen-asr/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).