whisper-base vs whisper-medium-gguf

Specs, VRAM requirements and download trends — updated 6 August 2026.

openai · A
Params
70 M
Context
30d
4.8 M
apache-2.0 · commercial OK
handy-computer · B
Params
Context
30d
518 K
apache-2.0 · commercial OK

Specification comparison

Differences are highlighted; identical values are muted.

Specification whisper-base whisper-medium-gguf
Parameters 70 M
Architecture WhisperForConditionalGeneration
Context length
Licence apache-2.0 apache-2.0
Commercial use Allowed Allowed
Languages 99 99
Downloads 30d 4,759,784 518,058
Downloads all time 46.7 M 585 K
Quantizations on the Hub SAFETENSORS GGUF
Gated No No
First seen on the Hub 2022-09-26 2026-04-27

Download trend

Daily snapshots, last 10 days (28 Jul – 6 Aug)

6.4 M443 K
whisper-base whisper-medium-gguf

VRAM side by side

On RTX 4090 · 24 GB · 8K context unless noted

whisper-base · fp16 0.8 GB / 24 GB
✅ Runs comfortably
whisper-medium-gguf · Q4_K_M 1.1 GB / 24 GB
✅ Runs comfortably

Adjacent comparisons