Self-Hosted vs. Cloud Transcription
Transcription happens either on someone else's infrastructure or on your own. This page states the difference plainly (data location, GDPR roles, licensing, administration) so you can decide which side of the line your recordings belong on.
The Two Models, Stated Plainly
Cloud transcription is a service: you upload a recording, the provider processes it on their servers, and the finished text comes back. The provider operates the models, the storage, and the pipeline; you operate a browser.
Self-hosted transcription reverses the direction: the software comes to you. Scriber is installed on your own server, and recordings, transcripts, summaries, and minutes are processed and stored entirely inside your infrastructure. Nothing is uploaded anywhere, and Determin never holds a copy.
Both models are legitimate. Which one is right depends on what is in your recordings, and on the rules your organisation must follow.
The Comparison
The table compares the two models as models, not the terms of any single provider.
| Cloud transcription | Self-hosted (Scriber) | |
|---|---|---|
| Data location | The provider's servers, in whatever regions they operate. | Your servers. Recordings and documents never leave your infrastructure. |
| Internet dependency | Required. Every recording travels over the internet. | None. Scriber runs offline, including on air-gapped networks. |
| GDPR processor role | The provider is a processor under Art. 28 GDPR: a data processing agreement is needed, and transfers outside the EU need their own safeguards. | No processor receives the audio. Processing stays on your systems, which simplifies your GDPR paperwork. |
| Who administers it | The provider; you manage accounts and billing. | Your IT, on your hardware. We install and configure at the start. |
| Licensing | Typically a subscription or per-minute metering that grows with usage. | Licensed per user, and only users who transcribe are counted. Usage on your own hardware is not metered. |
| Offline and air-gapped use | Not possible. The service is the connection. | Fully supported; nothing in Scriber calls out. |
When Cloud Is Enough
If your recordings contain nothing sensitive, no residency rules apply, and your IT has no appetite for operating another internal service, a cloud service is quick to adopt: no hardware, no installation, nothing to maintain. For material that is public anyway, recordings meant for publication, for instance, that is often the simplest route.
An honest comparison includes this. Self-hosting earns its keep where the content of the recordings, or the rules around them, make the upload itself the problem.
When Self-Hosted Is the Answer
As soon as recordings carry professional secrets, health data, or personal data whose location is prescribed, the place of processing stops being a matter of taste. Law firms cannot upload client conversations; healthcare providers cannot hand consultations to a third party; public bodies answer for the jurisdiction their records sit in.
The same holds where the network itself is closed, and wherever retention and deletion must follow your own rules rather than a provider's. These are the cases Scriber is built for: speaker-separated transcripts, summaries, and finished minutes, produced where the recordings already are.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is self-hosted transcription harder to run than a cloud service?
It carries the responsibility of one more service on your infrastructure, but not the work of building one. We install and configure Scriber on your server during the initial consultation and installation; from then on it runs inside your network like any other internal service. There is no pipeline to develop and nothing to operate by hand.
What does cloud transcription mean under the GDPR?
Uploading a recording makes the provider a processor under Art. 28 GDPR: you need a data processing agreement, you remain responsible for the data, and transfers outside the EU need their own safeguards. With Scriber, the audio is processed only on your own systems, so no processor receives it. Your data protection officer decides what that means for your specific setup.
Can we start in the cloud demo and move on-premise later?
A hosted demo exists at scriber.determin.de for a first look at the product. It is a demo, not the product: keep confidential recordings for your own installation. Evaluations usually move to an installation on your own infrastructure after the initial consultation.
Talk Both Models Through with Us
Tell us what is in your recordings, and we will say honestly which model fits.