# 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 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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — You run the software self-serve; Retell sells dedicated implementation support as an Enterprise add-on rather than a managed service, and points elsewhere to certified partners.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [GPT: yes — GPT models dominate the model menu, with both the standard STT-LLM-TTS path and GPT Realtime speech-to-speech priced per minute.](https://www.retellai.com/pricing) - [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 Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Open models: partial — The hosted model menu enumerates only OpenAI, Anthropic and Google models, so no open-weight model is offered, but the custom LLM WebSocket path exists precisely so you can host one yourself.](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) - [Audit log: partial — Agent configuration changes are recorded as immutable published versions with browsable history and side-by-side comparison; no workspace-level log of administrative actions such as role changes or key rotation is documented.](https://docs.retellai.com/agent/version) [View Retell AI](https://theagentsindex.com/retell-ai) ### 6. AudioCodes Live Hub Self-service SaaS for building voice AI agents and connecting them to SIP trunks, Teams, WhatsApp and WebRTC. **Research coverage:** 33/35 criteria **Where it improves on Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Done-for-you service: partial — Core product is self-service software you operate; AudioCodes will sell onboarding and integration help, but only as separately purchased hours.](https://www.audiocodes.com/livehub) - [GPT: yes — OpenAI text and realtime models are pre-deployed and resold per token by Live Hub, so no OpenAI account of your own is required.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Pre-deployed%20models.htm) - [Free tier: yes — Self-signup with no card and no sales call, seeded with $10 of credit; the trial account is deleted three months after creation.](https://www.audiocodes.com/livehub/pricing) **Trade-offs against Telnyx Voice AI Agents:** - [Claude: partial — Anthropic is reachable only as a bring-your-own-key custom model; the pre-deployed catalogue Live Hub bills for is OpenAI and Google only.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Bring%20your%20own%20models.htm) - [Open models: partial — Open-weight models run only as custom models on your own Groq, Cerebras or OpenAI keys; none appear in the pre-deployed list Live Hub hosts.](https://techdocs.audiocodes.com/livehub/Content/AI-Agents/Bring%20your%20own%20models.htm) - [In your editor: no — No editor plug-in exists; the two supported external clients are Claude Code and Claude Desktop over MCP, and neither is an IDE.](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.