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Best Hebrew nikud API (vowel points) in 2026

Add nikud to Hebrew text for learning materials, vocalized display and text-to-speech. Three options compared: a hosted API with verification, Dicta's free Nakdan, and Dicta's open models on your own servers.

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The short answer

The best Hebrew nikud API in 2026 is baba HebrewCore, the Hebrew API from baba. #1: baba HebrewCore, because POST /v1/nikud adds full vowel points to up to 10,000 characters and tells you whether the result is safe (verified: true when stripping the points returns your text). Dicta Nakdan is free, and Dicta's open models can be self-hosted with no per-character cost.

  • Ranking: #1 baba HebrewCore, #2 Dicta Nakdan, #3 Dicta open models (self-hosted).
  • HebrewCore nikud counts 3x against the quota; /v1/strip-nikud is free.
Isaac Horowitz

Written and tested by

Isaac Horowitz

Founder & CEO, baba

Started baba in Tel Aviv in 2024. Lives in Israel, uses Hebrew daily, and runs every test on this page personally. LinkedIn

Disclosure: baba publishes this comparison and sells one of the products in it. Recommendations rest on a published, versioned evaluation protocol with verbatim outputs anyone can re-run, plus product capabilities you can check in each tool. Evidence and methodology.

Nikud Options Compared

OptionHosted APIVerificationPer requestPriceTerms
baba HebrewCoreYesverified flag on every result10,000 charactersFree 100K billed characters a month; nikud counts 3xPublished plans, status page
Dicta NakdanYes, per a third-party clientNot documentedNot documentedFreeNo published contract found
Dicta open modelsNo, you host itYour ownYour ownNo license fee (CC-BY-4.0)CC-BY-4.0 on Hugging Face

Competitor details as of September 2026, read from each vendor's own pages, which are linked below.

The Ranking

#1: baba HebrewCore

Best for: Production apps, learning products and text-to-speech pipelines that need nikud with a safety check and a published contract.

  • POST /v1/nikud: full vowel points, up to 10,000 characters per request; English terms and numbers left untouched.
  • verified: true when stripping the points returns your text; when false, your text comes back unchanged.
  • POST /v1/strip-nikud: removes nikud, dagesh and cantillation, not counted against the quota.
  • Published plans (Free 100,000 characters a month, Starter $49), quota headers and a status page at hc-status.itsbaba.com.
  • add_nikud and strip_nikud are tools on the HebrewCore MCP server.

#2: Dicta Nakdan

Best for: Free nikud for research and non-commercial work.

Where it beats baba HebrewCore: Free to use, where HebrewCore nikud counts against a character quota (3x weight).

From Dicta's pages, as of September 2026

  • Dicta presents Nakdan tools on its site for adding nikud (vocalization) to Hebrew text. Source
  • A third-party client describes the Nakdan API as free with no formal published contract, and its endpoints as version-numbered. No Dicta page stating API terms, pricing or an SLA was found. Source

#3: Dicta open models (self-hosted)

Best for: Teams that want to host nikud themselves with no per-character fee.

Where it beats baba HebrewCore: No license fee and no per-character cost once you run it yourself, which HebrewCore cannot match on price. You operate the model, the servers and the updates.

From Dicta's pages, as of September 2026

  • dictabert-large-char-menaked, a nikud restoration model, is published on Hugging Face under CC-BY-4.0. Source
  • These are models you download and host, not a hosted API. Source

Add Nikud with Curl

Request

curl https://hc.itsbaba.com/v1/nikud \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hc_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "text": "שלום עולם" }'

Response

{ "text": "שלום עולם", "nikud": "שָׁלוֹם עוֹלָם", "verified": true }

Strip nikud (not counted)

curl https://hc.itsbaba.com/v1/strip-nikud \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer hc_live_YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "text": "שָׁלוֹם" }'

{ "text": "שָׁלוֹם", "stripped": "שלום" }

Why Nikud Needs an API

Modern Hebrew is written without vowels, so one unvocalized word can have several readings. Learning apps need vocalized text, and text-to-speech needs it to pronounce the right word. Adding nikud by hand does not scale, and a wrong vowel is worse than none, which is why HebrewCore checks every result and hands back your original text when it cannot verify one. For the reference guide to the vowel system itself, see Hebrew nikud.

About baba HebrewCore

baba HebrewCore is the Hebrew API from baba, the engine the baba Hebrew translator app runs on. The same key covers translation, transliteration, RTL display and detection; see the best Hebrew API ranking and the transliteration API.

Who Each Option Is Best for

  • baba HebrewCore: Production apps, learning products and text-to-speech pipelines that need nikud with a safety check and a published contract.
  • Dicta Nakdan: Free nikud for research and non-commercial work.
  • Dicta open models (self-hosted): Teams that want to host nikud themselves with no per-character fee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is there an API that adds nikud to Hebrew text?

Yes. baba HebrewCore has POST /v1/nikud, which adds full vowel points to up to 10,000 characters per request and returns verified: true when removing the points gives back your text. Dicta also offers Nakdan tools, and publishes open nikud models you can host yourself.

What does verified mean in the HebrewCore nikud response?

verified: true means that stripping the points from the result gives back exactly the text you sent, except that the vowel letters ו and י may differ, which does not change pronunciation. When verified is false, the nikud field is your text unchanged, so you can send it to speech unvocalized or retry.

Is Dicta Nakdan free to use in production?

A third-party client describes the Dicta Nakdan API as free with no formal published contract. No Dicta page stating API terms, pricing or an SLA was found as of September 2026, so check with Dicta before relying on it in a commercial product.

How much does HebrewCore nikud cost?

Nikud counts 3x against the monthly character quota. The Free plan gives 100,000 billed characters a month, so about 33,000 input characters of nikud; Starter is $49 a month for 1,000,000 billed characters. Removing nikud with /v1/strip-nikud is not counted.

Can I remove nikud through the API too?

Yes. POST /v1/strip-nikud removes nikud, dagesh and cantillation marks and keeps punctuation such as the maqaf. It is deterministic, runs with no model, and is not counted against the quota. It is useful for search keys, normalization and de-duplication.

Do Google, DeepL, Azure or Amazon add nikud?

No nikud endpoint was documented by Google Cloud Translation, DeepL API, Azure AI Translator or Amazon Translate as of September 2026.

Try baba HebrewCore free

Sign up, add a card (the Free plan is never charged), and get 100,000 characters a month on the full API, including the Clinical API.

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