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How to choose a provider

Choosing the right provider depends on a variety of factors, such as the type of model you need, the infrastructure you prefer, and the nature of your workload. Follow these steps to determine the best option for your needs:

1. Define your task and model requirements

Before choosing a provider, consider what task you need to achieve and the model best suited to handle it. Ask yourself:

What service are you looking for?
For example, are you performing speech-to-text, transcription, or something else?

Which model supports this task?
Some models might only be available through specific providers. For instance:

  • The whisper model is served through the cloud provider openai (via OpenAI's API).
  • The faster-whisper model is exclusive to SonarSpeak’s local providers, like sonarspeak_serverless.

Once you've identified the model that fits your task, check which providers can serve it.

2. Understand the differences between cloud and local providers

Now that you know which model you need, consider how cloud and local providers differ and how these differences impact your use case:

  • Cloud Providers:

    • Ideal when you need access to models hosted by third-party APIs, like OpenAI or Google Cloud.

    • All requests go through SonarSpeak before reaching the external API. SonarSpeak acts as a proxy for all your requests and doesn’t save or share this info with anyone.

    • Recommended for small tasks or scenarios where low latency is crucial, as cloud providers often deliver faster responses due to their specialized hardware.

  • Local Providers:

    • Best for models served entirely within the SonarSpeak-managed infrastructure, either on serverless environments or on-premise instances.

    • Offers greater control and privacy since everything happens within the SonarSpeak ecosystem.

    • More suitable for processing large files or tasks that don’t require ultra-low latency as cold boots or hardware being used might not provide fast responses all the time.

By considering how each provider type aligns with your task, you can narrow down your selection to the one that feels like the best fit.

3. Consider latency vs. workload size

The nature of your workload also plays an important role when choosing a provider:

  • Cloud providers: These are optimized for low-latency tasks and faster responses. They are better suited for workloads like short transcriptions, where a fast response might impact your customers

  • Local providers: Although requests to these providers may introduce slightly higher latency, this difference is not always noticeable. For large file processing or tasks not dependent on instant responses, local providers can handle the workload efficiently.

By understanding the sensitivity of your workload to latency, you can determine whether a cloud or local provider provides the best balance of speed and capability.

4. Evaluate privacy and data handling

If your use case involves sensitive or confidential data, understanding how each provider handles data is crucial:

  • Cloud providers: While efficient and versatile, cloud providers rely on third-party APIs, which means your data will pass through external infrastructure. You might consider reading their terms of service before using them with sensitive data. While using cloud providers, SonarSpeak doesn’t tag your data while sending them to Cloud providers.

  • Local providers: Since all operations remain within SonarSpeak’s infrastructure, they provide a higher degree of data privacy. This makes them ideal for workflows where data can’t leave the controlled environment.

Either if you choose cloud or local providers, SonarSpeak will NEVER share, sell, or keep any of your audio files, transcriptions or any link other than your usage in the platform for effective billing purposes.

Conclusion

Selecting the right provider involves balancing several factors, including your specific task, workload size, latency expectations, and privacy requirements. With SonarSpeak’s flexible infrastructure, you can confidently make a decision that aligns with your needs:

  • For low-latency, high-privacy use cases, Cloud providers offer unmatched speed and control, making them ideal for smaller tasks
  • For larger workloads or tasks that are less sensitive to latency, Local providers deliver scalability and efficiency without compromising consistency.

By understanding your priorities and evaluating these key aspects, SonarSpeak empowers you to seamlessly choose the best provider to meet your goals