# Alternatives to AudioCodes Live Hub > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/audiocodes-live-hub/alternatives (current datasheets, evidence-ranked) Candidates share the baseline category or are previously researched peers. Requirements, preserved strengths, explicit trade-offs and research coverage decide the order; paid tier does not. ## Shortlist ### 1. ElevenLabs Agents Hosted platform for building voice and chat agents, with telephony, SDKs and a choice of LLM. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Agent permissions: yes — Tool use is gated per MCP server and per tool: always ask, fine-grained (auto-approved, requires approval, disabled), or no approval at all.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/tools/mcp) - [Claude: yes — Anthropic models are natively selectable in agent settings; a few older Claude models drop out in EU data-residency workspaces.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/llm) - [Open models: yes — Open-weight models run two ways: ElevenLabs-hosted Qwen in the native model list, or Llama and Mixtral through a custom LLM endpoint such as Together AI, Groq or SambaNova.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/llm/custom-llm/together-ai) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - No researched regression against the baseline. [View ElevenLabs Agents](https://theagentsindex.com/elevenlabs-conversational-ai) ### 2. Vapi Developer platform for building, testing and deploying voice AI agents that make and receive phone calls. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Claude: yes — Claude is selectable as the assistant's LLM, on Vapi's integration or your own Anthropic account.](https://docs.vapi.ai/providers/model/anthropic) - [Open models: yes — Open-weight models reach the pipeline through Groq, Together AI, Mistral, DeepSeek and OpenRouter, or a self-hosted server.](https://vapi.ai/platform) - [In your editor: partial — No agent runtime in the editor; `vapi mcp setup` teaches Cursor, Windsurf and VSCode the Vapi API so you can build from the IDE.](https://docs.vapi.ai/cli) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Seat model: no — Nothing is priced per seat: the plan table meters call minutes and concurrent lines only, and members are invited with RBAC roles.](https://vapi.ai/pricing) - [Certifications: partial — SOC 2 Type II and a HIPAA BAA sit in the Scale contract, and the plan table shows SOC2 only in that column; HIPAA mode is a $2,000/month add-on on either plan.](https://docs.vapi.ai/enterprise/plans) [View Vapi](https://theagentsindex.com/vapi) ### 3. PolyAI Enterprise platform for building voice and chat agents that resolve customer calls, priced per minute. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Claude: yes — Claude is one of the third-party models you can run instead of Raven; the model docs list Claude options under the Amazon Bedrock provider tab, selectable per channel.](https://poly.ai/blog/agentic-dialog-platform-open-to-builders) - [In your editor: yes — The ADK edits agent resources as local files in any editor, and Builder MCP plugs the same workflow into Cursor, Claude Code, Claude Desktop and Codex.](https://poly.ai/developers) - [On the command line: yes — The poly CLI pulls, branches, validates, pushes and chats against a project from the terminal.](https://docs.poly.ai/extend/adk) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Multi-agent: no — The only 'team of agents' feature is assigning several TTS voices to one agent; no coordination between multiple agents on a single task is documented, and the build assistant works one branch at a time.](https://docs.poly.ai/voice-channel/multi-voice) - [Seat model: no — No per-seat price is published; billing tracks conversation volume, and team members are added by invitation with role-based permissions.](https://poly.ai/msa) - [Pooled budget: partial — Conversation volume draws on one account-level Subscription Volume of CX Tokens, but the Wren builder allowance is per person and not shared.](https://docs.poly.ai/wren/usage-and-limits) [View PolyAI](https://theagentsindex.com/polyai) ### 4. Cartesia Real-time speech models and a managed runtime for production phone and web voice agents. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Claude: yes — Anthropic Claude models are named in the SDK's supported-models table and used in its examples.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) - [In your editor: partial — No native IDE extension; the documented editor surface is the Cartesia MCP server used from Cursor or Claude Code.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/tools/ai/mcp) - [On the command line: yes — A `cartesia` CLI creates, deploys and manages agents, and can chat with agent logic locally.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/cli) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Done-for-you service: no — Self-serve software: you build and deploy the agent yourself; sales contact exists for Enterprise terms, not for building it for you.](https://www.cartesia.ai/agents) - [Multi-agent: no — System tools enumerate three slots: end call, DTMF, and transfer to an E.164 phone number. An agent therefore hands off to a number, not to another Cartesia agent.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/agents/system-tools) - [Bring your own key: partial — No bring-your-own LLM key: Cartesia bills the LLM itself. You can bring your own carrier via SIP trunking and host the agent's reasoning code yourself.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/agents/models) [View Cartesia](https://theagentsindex.com/cartesia) ### 5. Retell AI Platform for building, testing and deploying AI voice and chat agents on phone, web and SMS, billed per minute. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Claude: yes — Claude Sonnet and Haiku models are selectable for voice agents, priced per minute, and for chat agents per AI message.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [In your editor: partial — Retell's own MCP server lets Cursor, Claude Desktop, Claude Code and Codex-style clients create, publish and inspect agents; the agent itself never runs in an editor.](https://docs.retellai.com/get-started/mcp-server) - [Self-hosted: partial — On-prem deployment is an Enterprise offering; on pay-as-you-go the only self-hosted piece is your own LLM behind the custom-LLM WebSocket, or your own SIP telephony.](https://www.retellai.com/) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [On the command line: no — The docs enumerate every way to drive Retell: dashboard, REST API, Node/Python SDKs and MCP server. No command-line tool is among them.](https://docs.retellai.com/general/introduction) - [Seat model: no — No seat charge and no seat floor: the Monthly Subscription Items table lists every recurring line item (phone numbers, SMS, concurrency, knowledge bases, verified numbers) and none is a seat. Capacity is bought as concurrent calls at $8 each per month.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [Opt out of training: no — The privacy policy lists training its AI models among the uses of collected data, and its 'Your Choices' section offers only account deletion, cookie preferences, marketing opt-out and sale/sharing opt-out, with no training opt-out.](https://www.retellai.com/legal/privacy-policy) [View Retell AI](https://theagentsindex.com/retell-ai) ### 6. Deepgram Voice Agent API One WebSocket API that runs speech-to-text, LLM orchestration and text-to-speech for real-time voice agents. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Claude: yes — Anthropic is a Deepgram-managed provider, so no endpoint of your own is needed; Claude Sonnet models bill at the Advanced tier and Claude Haiku at Standard.](https://developers.deepgram.com/docs/voice-agent-llm-models) - [Open models: yes — Open-weight LLMs are listed as supported models: gpt-oss-20b through Groq, which requires you to supply the endpoint, and an NVIDIA Nemotron model that Deepgram manages. Deepgram's own speech and voice weights are not distributed.](https://developers.deepgram.com/docs/voice-agent-llm-models) - [Self-hosted: partial — Self-hosted containers are an Enterprise-only path. Deepgram's own self-hosting pages enumerate speech-to-text, text-to-speech and audio intelligence, not voice-agent orchestration, while the Voice Agent product page lists self-hosted as a deployment option. Dedicated single-tenant hosting does explicitly cover agent workloads.](https://deepgram.com/pricing) **Trade-offs against AudioCodes Live Hub:** - [Done-for-you service: no — Self-serve software you build against: you sign up, get an API key and write the client. Enterprise brings an account representative and a contract, not a team that builds and runs the agent for you.](https://deepgram.com/product/voice-agent-api) - [Multi-agent: partial — Handoff between specialised agents is a documented pattern with a reference implementation you run yourself: your orchestrator opens a fresh Voice Agent session per agent and summarises context between them. The API itself has no built-in agent-to-agent coordination.](https://developers.deepgram.com/docs/multi-agent-architecture) - [Free tier: partial — A $200 signup credit with no credit card required, spendable on any endpoint including the agent, plus a hosted playground. It is a credit grant, not a free tier: once it is spent, every call is metered.](https://deepgram.com/pricing) [View Deepgram Voice Agent API](https://theagentsindex.com/deepgram-voice-agent-api) ## Method Unknown data is never treated as a benefit or a trade-off. Featured placement is labelled but cannot alter recommendation order.