Top 6 of 22 researched candidates
Alternatives to VoiceAgents
Find a better fit for what you need. Compare alternatives to VoiceAgents with sourced features, strengths and trade-offs side by side.
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Evidence-backed shortlist
Closest researched alternatives to VoiceAgents
Ordered by the requirements met, strengths preserved, explicit trade-offs and research coverage. Sponsorship does not enter the order.
- 01
ElevenLabs Agents
Hosted platform for building voice and chat agents, with telephony, SDKs and a choice of LLM.
From FreeWhy it's on this listDone-for-you service · PartialSelf-serve software you run, but enterprises can buy ElevenLabs Forward Deployed Engineers who scope, build and stabilise the deployment; no price is published.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +Multi-agent · YesAn orchestrator agent routes a live conversation to specialist agents on natural-language conditions, and transfers can be nested; the transcript carries across.Evidence ↗
- +Agent permissions · YesTool use is gated per MCP server and per tool: always ask, fine-grained (auto-approved, requires approval, disabled), or no approval at all.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
No disadvantages found in the criteria researched so far.
35/35 researched criteria - 02
Vapi
Developer platform for building, testing and deploying voice AI agents that make and receive phone calls.
From $0.05/minuteWhy it's on this listDone-for-you service · PartialYou build and run the agent yourself; the Scale contract adds an embedded Vapi engineer for the go-live, not a done-for-you build.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +Multi-agent · YesSquads route one conversation across several specialised assistants with context-preserving handoffs.Evidence ↗
- +Open models · YesOpen-weight models reach the pipeline through Groq, Together AI, Mistral, DeepSeek and OpenRouter, or a self-hosted server.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
- −Opt out of training · PartialThe 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.Evidence ↗
35/35 researched criteria - 03
Cartesia
Real-time speech models and a managed runtime for production phone and web voice agents.
From FreeWhy it's on this listOpen models · PartialThe 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.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +On the command line · YesA `cartesia` CLI creates, deploys and manages agents, and can chat with agent logic locally.Evidence ↗
- +Self-hosted · PartialOn-premise or VPC model deployment is sales-gated; separately, agent reasoning code can run on your own servers with Cartesia connecting to your URL.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
- −Opt out of training · PartialOpt-out is by request form for selected categories of content; Enterprise plans can additionally enable Zero Data Retention for TTS and STT inference.Evidence ↗
35/35 researched criteria - 04
Deepgram Voice Agent API
One WebSocket API that runs speech-to-text, LLM orchestration and text-to-speech for real-time voice agents.
From $0.05/minuteWhy it's on this listMulti-agent · PartialHandoff 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.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +Open models · YesOpen-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.Evidence ↗
- +On the command line · PartialThe 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.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
- −Free tier · PartialA $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.Evidence ↗
35/35 researched criteria - 05
LiveKit Agents
Open-source Python and Node.js framework for voice AI agents, with LiveKit Cloud hosting, telephony and observability.
From FreeWhy it's on this listMulti-agent · YesMultiple agents in one session via handoffs, plus a supervisor pattern where one agent keeps control and delegates to scoped tasks.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +Open models · YesOpen-weight models are the recommended default in LiveKit Inference (Gemma 4 31B, GPT OSS 120B, DeepSeek), and the Ollama plugin runs models locally.Evidence ↗
- +On the command line · YesThe lk CLI creates projects, deploys agents and manages LiveKit Cloud; agents can also be run and talked to locally in console mode.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
- −Pooled budget · PartialNo per-user balances: allowances pool inside a project. Sharing one plan across projects, and quotas managed at workspace level, are Enterprise only.Evidence ↗
35/35 researched criteria - 06
PolyAI
Enterprise platform for building voice and chat agents that resolve customer calls, priced per minute.
Why it's on this listDone-for-you service · PartialSelf-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.Evidence ↗
Where it improves on VoiceAgents
- +Open models · PartialThe model catalogue enumerates only Raven, OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock (Claude, Nova) with no open-weight option, but you can attach your own LLM endpoint.Evidence ↗
- +On the command line · YesThe poly CLI pulls, branches, validates, pushes and chats against a project from the terminal.Evidence ↗
Trade-offs against VoiceAgents
- −Pooled budget · PartialConversation volume draws on one account-level Subscription Volume of CX Tokens, but the Wren builder allowance is per person and not shared.Evidence ↗
- −Opt out of training · PartialCustomer conversations reach Raven training only where the contract authorises it, and the privacy notice relies on consent where law requires; no self-serve opt-out control is documented.Evidence ↗
35/35 researched criteria
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How the shortlist is calculated
Comparable first. We consider listings in the same category as VoiceAgents and alternatives previously researched for this page.
Requirements first. We prioritise your selected needs, then shared strengths, fewer documented trade-offs, more complete research and finally alphabetical order.
Unknown remains unknown. Missing evidence is never converted into a benefit or a trade-off. Every improvement shown above comes from the same sourced criterion as the listing.
Independent order. Payment does not affect selection or ranking. Paid placements are labelled Advertisement.
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