kaldialign
Kaldi alignment methods wrapped into Python
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes. The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, supports current Python versions (3.10–3.14), and solves a specific, high-value problem: exact Kaldi-compatible WER scoring. Medium install friction is acceptable given prebuilt wheels for all major platforms. Use it if you need reproducible speech recognition metrics that match Kaldi exactly.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Medium install friction due to compiled wheels; prebuilt binaries available for Python 3.10–3.14 on macOS, Linux, and Windows, but verbose installation flags recommended per documentation.
License · maintenance · safety
Apache-2.0 (permissive) — Apache-2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; attribution required.
last release 2026-06-15 (60 days) · last repo commit 2026-06-15 · 70 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 318,565 downloads/mo, #7,651 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install kaldialign
from kaldialign import edit_distance
ref = ['a', 'b', 'c']
hyp = ['a', 's', 'x', 'c']
results = edit_distance(ref, hyp)
print(results) # {'ins': 1, 'del': 0, 'sub': 1, 'total': 2}- Whether pybind11 compilation is required when prebuilt wheels are unavailable for a specific platform.
- Performance characteristics (speed, memory) relative to other edit-distance libraries for large-scale batch processing.
What it is and what it does
kaldialign wraps Kaldi's edit-distance and alignment algorithms directly into Python via pybind11, ensuring bit-for-bit compatibility with Kaldi's scoring. It exposes functions for computing edit distance (with insertion, deletion, substitution counts), sequence alignment, corpus-level error rates, and WER confidence intervals via bootstrapping. The package solves the problem of inconsistent Levenshtein implementations across tools by using Kaldi's proven code unchanged.
The library is designed for speech recognition and NLP workflows where WER measurement must match Kaldi's results exactly. It supports optional SCLITE-style weighting (insertion/deletion cost 3, substitution cost 4), compound word matching to handle transcription inconsistencies, and statistical confidence interval estimation. No external runtime dependencies are required; the package is self-contained after installation.
Use it for
- Measure WER for speech recognition systems with guaranteed Kaldi compatibility.
- Align reference and hypothesis sequences to identify specific error types (insertions, deletions, substitutions).
- Compute corpus-level error statistics across batches of transcription pairs.
- Extract 95% confidence intervals for WER using bootstrapping to assess statistical significance.
- Handle compound word inconsistencies (e.g., 'white paper' vs 'whitepaper') at zero cost in error calculations.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes.
The package is actively maintained, has no known vulnerabilities, supports current Python versions (3.10–3.14), and solves a specific, high-value problem: exact Kaldi-compatible WER scoring. Medium install friction is acceptable given prebuilt wheels for all major platforms. Use it if you need reproducible speech recognition metrics that match Kaldi exactly.
Install
kaldialign on PyPI
Before you install
Medium install friction due to compiled wheels; prebuilt binaries available for Python 3.10–3.14 on macOS, Linux, and Windows, but verbose installation flags recommended per documentation.
License in practice
Apache-2.0 permissive license allows commercial and private use with minimal restrictions; attribution required.
Quickstart
pip install kaldialign
from kaldialign import edit_distance
ref = ['a', 'b', 'c']
hyp = ['a', 's', 'x', 'c']
results = edit_distance(ref, hyp)
print(results) # {'ins': 1, 'del': 0, 'sub': 1, 'total': 2}Verify before relying
- Whether pybind11 compilation is required when prebuilt wheels are unavailable for a specific platform.
- Performance characteristics (speed, memory) relative to other edit-distance libraries for large-scale batch processing.
Package facts
| License | Apache-2.0 permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.10 |
| Install friction | Medium. Platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Actively maintained 60 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 318,565 / month, #7,651 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableIntended Audience :: DevelopersOperating System :: OS IndependentProgramming Language :: Python :: 3 :: OnlyProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Topic :: Scientific/Engineering :: Artificial IntelligenceTopic :: Scientific/Engineering :: MathematicsTopic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python ModulesTopic :: Text Processing :: Linguistic |
Evidence: kaldialign-0.12.0-cp310-cp310-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_24_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp310-cp310-manylinux_2_24_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp310-cp310-win32.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_24_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp311-cp311-manylinux_2_24_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp311-cp311-win32.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp312-cp312-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_24_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp312-cp312-manylinux_2_24_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp312-cp312-win32.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux_2_24_aarch64.manylinux_2_28_aarch64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp313-cp313-manylinux_2_24_x86_64.manylinux_2_28_x86_64.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp313-cp313-win32.whl; kaldialign-0.12.0-cp313-cp313-win_amd64.whl
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See also jiwer · texterrors · nlptutti · editdistpy · edlib · kaldifst · editdistance · kaldi-python-io · fastdtw · kaldi-native-fbank