How do I get "Parakeet"?

[WGroleau]

The announcement of Parakeet (ultra-fast?) was good news until I didcovered I don't have it and don't know how to get it.

[officiallyutso]

You need to do two things:

1. Use the latest version of whisper.cpp

Make sure you pull the latest code:

git clone https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp
cd whisper.cpp
git pull origin master
make

2. Enable Parakeet using the --decoding-parakeet flag

Once built, just run the CLI with:

./main -m models/ggml-base.en.q5_1.bin --decoding-parakeet -f samples/jfk.wav

This activates the Parakeet decoder instead of the default decoder.

---

Want to Compare Speeds?

Try running with and without the flag and measure the time:

./main --decoding-parakeet -f your_audio.wav  # With Parakeet
./main -f your_audio.wav                      # Without Parakeet

---

Notes:

• Works best with quantized models (Q5_1, Q6_K).
• May still be under tuning — watch for updates or issues.
• If building from scratch: make clean && make -j to ensure it's fully updated.

Hope this helps.

[WGroleau]

Not sure that helps. I am using the GUI app downloaded pre-built, rather than command line.  As a retired software engineer, I could probably do this, though I'm a bit rusty after eleven years of retirement.  However, I would rather not have to download and build a separate command-line version.

[officiallyutso]

If you're using the GUI version, Parakeet isn't available yet — it's currently only supported in the CLI (main) binary via the --decoding-parakeet flag. You'd need to build from source or use a precompiled CLI binary to try it. Hopefully GUI support will be added soon!