# Alternatives to Telnyx Voice AI Agents > Source: https://theagentsindex.com/telnyx-voice-ai/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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — Self-serve software you run, but enterprises can buy ElevenLabs Forward Deployed Engineers who scope, build and stabilise the deployment; no price is published.](https://elevenlabs.io/agents/forward-deployed-engineers) - [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) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI models are natively supported and are the one provider family the vendor says stays fully available under EU data residency.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/customization/llm) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [In your editor: no — The vendor enumerates its surfaces as web widgets, mobile apps, phone systems and custom integrations; no editor or IDE extension appears in that list.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-agents/integrate/overview) - [Audit log: partial — OCSF-schema logs over 100 administrative endpoints, pullable into a SIEM, but gated on Enterprise tier plus an API key holding audit_log_read.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/administration/workspaces/audit-logs) - [Single sign-on: partial — SAML and OIDC with domain verification, plus SCIM provisioning, all Enterprise-only; SAML is service-provider-initiated only and Entra over OIDC is discouraged.](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/administration/workspaces/sso) [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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — You build and run the agent yourself; the Scale contract adds an embedded Vapi engineer for the go-live, not a done-for-you build.](https://vapi.ai/) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT models are selectable as the assistant's LLM.](https://docs.vapi.ai/providers/model/openai) - [Self-hosted: partial — Self-serve is hosted only; on-premise is offered to large enterprises, and the orchestration layer otherwise never leaves Vapi.](https://docs.vapi.ai/faq) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Audit log: partial — The dashboard keeps org-wide API, call and webhook logs and assistant version history; no member-action audit trail is documented.](https://docs.vapi.ai/debugging) - [Single sign-on: partial — SAML 2.0 or OIDC with any IdP, but enterprise-only and without SCIM provisioning; the Build column shows a dash.](https://docs.vapi.ai/security-and-privacy/sso) - [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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — Self-serve software plus vendor-delivered work: PolyAI builds and maintains managed dashboards, configures managed-service integrations, and runs an enterprise build of roughly six weeks.](https://docs.poly.ai/analytics/dashboards/custom) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT is one of the third-party models you can run instead of Raven; the model docs list GPT options under the OpenAI 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) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [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) - [Open models: partial — The model catalogue enumerates only Raven, OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock (Claude, Nova) with no open-weight option, but you can attach your own LLM endpoint.](https://docs.poly.ai/behavior/models/byom) - [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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT models appear in the same supported-models table.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) - [Self-hosted: partial — On-premise or VPC model deployment is sales-gated; separately, agent reasoning code can run on your own servers with Cartesia connecting to your URL.](https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing) - [Open source: partial — The official JS/TS and Python client SDKs are public repositories on Cartesia's GitHub; the Sonic and Ink models and the agent runtime are not.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/tools/client-libraries) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice 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) - [Open models: partial — The LLM layer routes through LiteLLM to 100+ providers, but the vendor names only Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, and its own speech models are API-only.](https://docs.cartesia.ai/line/sdk/agents) - [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 Pay-as-you-go platform for building, testing and running AI phone, chat and SMS agents. **Research coverage:** 34/35 criteria **Where it improves on Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — You run the software yourself in Retell's no-code studio; hands-on implementation by Retell's people is sold only as an Enterprise add-on, not as a managed service.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [GPT: yes — Multiple GPT tiers are offered as conversation models, each with its own per-minute rate and an optional faster tier for lower latency.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [Getting out: yes — Filtered call and chat history exports to CSV including transcripts, and list/get APIs cover the same data; purchased credits never expire but are non-refundable once bought.](https://docs.retellai.com/features/session-history) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Open models: partial — Retell's own model menu is limited to hosted GPT, Claude and Gemini, but the custom-LLM path lets you put a self-hosted open-weights model behind the agent over a WebSocket you operate.](https://docs.retellai.com/integrate-llm/overview) - [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) - [Bring your own key: partial — You can bring your own model server and your own telephony carrier over SIP, but there is no documented way to supply your own OpenAI or Anthropic keys for Retell's built-in models.](https://docs.retellai.com/integrate-llm/overview) [View Retell AI](https://theagentsindex.com/retell-ai) ### 6. 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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — The product itself is self-service software you run, but AudioCodes sells support packages and professional-services hours as purchasable add-ons for onboarding and integration work.](https://www.audiocodes.com/livehub) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI GPT models are pre-deployed on the platform, so an agent can use them with no key of your own, and realtime speech-to-speech GPT variants are included too.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Pre-deployed%20models.htm) - [Seat model: partial — The platform itself is not sold per seat and imposes no user minimum; the only per-user charge is Microsoft Teams Direct Routing, billed monthly per enabled user.](https://www.audiocodes.com/livehub/pricing) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Claude: partial — Claude models are supported only as bring-your-own custom models configured with your own Anthropic API key; the pre-deployed model list carries OpenAI and Google models only.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Bring%20your%20own%20models.htm) - [Open models: partial — Open-weight models such as gpt-oss and Gemma are reachable only through the bring-your-own-model path with your own Groq, Cerebras or OpenAI keys, not from the pre-deployed set.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Bring%20your%20own%20models.htm) - [In your editor: no — There is no editor or IDE extension: authoring happens in the web portal, and the only documented developer-tool integrations are the two MCP clients named below.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/MCP%20server.htm) [View AudioCodes Live Hub](https://theagentsindex.com/audiocodes-live-hub) ## Method Unknown data is never treated as a benefit or a trade-off. Featured placement is labelled but cannot alter recommendation order.