: Developing a speech-based application for mobile devices requires work upfront, since mobile devices and speech recognition systems vary dramatically in their capabilities. While mobile devices can concisely be classified by their processing power, memory, operating system and wireless network speed it is a bit trickier for speech recognition engines. This paper presents a comprehensive approach that comprises a profound classification of speech recognition systems for mobile applications and a framework for mobile and distributed speech recognition. The framework called Gulliver speeds up the development process with multi-modal components that can be sed in a GUI designer and with abstraction layers that support the integration of various speech recognition engines depending on the user’s needs. The framework itself provides the base for a model-driven development approach.