# Alternatives to HeyRik > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/heyrik/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 HeyRik:** - [Multi-agent: yes — An orchestrator agent routes a live conversation to specialist agents on natural-language conditions, and transfers can be nested; the transcript carries across.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/tools/system-tools/agent-transfer) - [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) - [Model choice: yes — You pick the model per agent, plus a backup cascade; LLM usage is billed on top of the plan and varies by model.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/llm) **Trade-offs against HeyRik:** - No researched regression against the baseline. [View ElevenLabs Agents](https://theagentsindex.com/elevenlabs-conversational-ai) ### 2. Synthflow Enterprise voice AI platform with in-house telephony for inbound and outbound call automation. **Research coverage:** 35/35 criteria **Where it improves on HeyRik:** - [Multi-agent: yes — Subflows act as specialised agents that a parent flow triggers for individual tasks.](https://synthflow.ai/) - [Agent permissions: yes — Flow logic, approved knowledge sources, end-call reasons and handoff triggers bound what an agent may say or do.](https://synthflow.ai/) - [In your editor: partial — No Synthflow editor extension; Claude, Claude Code and Cowork can drive the workspace over MCP from where a developer already works.](https://docs.synthflow.ai/anthropic) **Trade-offs against HeyRik:** - No researched regression against the baseline. [View Synthflow](https://theagentsindex.com/synthflow-ai) ### 3. 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 HeyRik:** - [Multi-agent: yes — Squads route one conversation across several specialised assistants with context-preserving handoffs.](https://docs.vapi.ai/quickstart/introduction) - [Model choice: yes — You choose transcriber, LLM and voice independently and can swap any of them.](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 HeyRik:** - [Opt out of training: partial — The privacy policy reserves call content for model training and names no toggle; the $1,000/month ZDR add-on is the only documented way to stop it being kept at all.](https://vapi.ai/privacy) [View Vapi](https://theagentsindex.com/vapi) ### 4. AudioCodes Live Hub Self-service cloud platform for building voice AI agents and connecting them to real telephony channels. **Research coverage:** 33/35 criteria **Where it improves on HeyRik:** - [Multi-agent: yes — The AI Agents framework is explicitly multi-agent: several specialist agents collaborate on one call and callers are routed between them, with documented multi-agent topologies.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/AI%20Agents.htm) - [Model choice: yes — You choose the LLM per agent from pre-deployed models or add your own provider, and you can equally bring an entirely external conversational AI platform instead.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Bring%20your%20own%20models.htm) - [On the command line: partial — AudioCodes ships no CLI of its own; terminal use is indirect, by pointing the Claude Code command-line agent at the platform's MCP endpoint with API client credentials.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/MCP%20server.htm) **Trade-offs against HeyRik:** - [Free tier: partial — You can sign up and test without a credit card on $10 of complimentary credit, but that is a limited Trial plan that goes inactive at a zero balance rather than a standing free tier.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/LiveHub/Account%20plans.htm) [View AudioCodes Live Hub](https://theagentsindex.com/audiocodes-live-hub) ### 5. 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 HeyRik:** - [Model choice: yes — You pick the agent's LLM and can swap it in the Playground or API; Cartesia owns the speech models and manages the LLM integration.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/agents/models) - [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 HeyRik:** - [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) - [Opt out of training: partial — Opt-out is by request form for selected categories of content; Enterprise plans can additionally enable Zero Data Retention for TTS and STT inference.](https://www.cartesia.ai/legal/privacy) [View Cartesia](https://theagentsindex.com/cartesia) ### 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 HeyRik:** - [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) - [Model choice: yes — You choose the STT model, the LLM provider and model, and the TTS voice, and can swap the LLM or voice mid-session with UpdateThink and UpdateSpeak messages.](https://developers.deepgram.com/docs/voice-agent-architecture) - [On the command line: partial — The dg CLI covers transcription, synthesis, text analysis and account management; its own getting-started enumeration and command reference contain no voice-agent command, while the agentic-tools page claims the CLI reaches voice agents. Both statements are recorded in notes.](https://developers.deepgram.com/developer-tools/cli/getting-started) **Trade-offs against HeyRik:** - [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) - [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.