Pipecat alternatives
Pipecat by Daily costs Free (OSS) and is open source. If you need something cheaper, open source, self-hosted or simply different, here are 6 alternatives that do the same job, ranked by how widely they are used, with the differences that matter.
6 Pipecat alternatives, by popularity
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ElevenLabs' conversational agent platform (formerly Conversational AI) for building and deploying voice and chat agents across web, mobile, telephony and messaging channels.
- Proprietary
- More widely used (Gid Score 60 vs 40)
- Growing fast: usage up 35% in 30 days
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Platform for building, testing, deploying and monitoring AI voice and chat agents, with built-in telephony, prompt and flow builders, tool calling and analytics.
- Proprietary
- More widely used (Gid Score 51 vs 40)
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A framework for building realtime voice and video AI agents on LiveKit's WebRTC infrastructure.
- More widely used (Gid Score 50 vs 40)
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Developer platform and API for building, testing and deploying voice AI agents for phone and web calls, combining third-party speech-to-text, language model and text-to-speech providers.
- Proprietary
- More widely used (Gid Score 50 vs 40)
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Platform for building and deploying AI voice agents that handle inbound and outbound phone calls, with telephony, SIP and CRM or contact-centre integrations.
- Proprietary
- Less widely used (Gid Score 16 vs 40)
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Platform for building, monitoring and improving AI phone agents for inbound and outbound calls, with speech recognition, language model and speech synthesis bundled into a per-minute rate.
- Proprietary
- Less widely used (Gid Score 12 vs 40)
Pipecat vs alternatives at a glance
| Agent | Price | Free to start | Open source | MCP | Local models | Gid Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pipecat | Free (OSS) | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | 40 |
| ElevenLabs Agents | Free + $0.08/extra minute | ✓ | ✕ | ? | ? | 60 |
| Retell AI | Free + $0.055/min | ✓ | ✕ | ? | ? | 51 |
| LiveKit Agents | Free (OSS) | ✓ | ✓ | ? | ? | 50 |
| Vapi | Free + $0.05/min | ✓ | ✕ | ? | ? | 50 |
| Synthflow | Custom | ✕ | ✕ | ? | ? | 16 |
| Bland AI | Free + $0.14/min | ✓ | ✕ | ? | ? | 12 |
Prices from the vendors' pricing pages; features from official docs (“?” means not documented). Full feature comparison · All prices
FAQ
What is the best alternative to Pipecat?
By usage, the closest alternative is ElevenLabs Agents, followed by Retell AI, LiveKit Agents, Vapi.
Is there a free alternative to Pipecat?
None of the closest alternatives has a free tier.
Is there an open-source alternative to Pipecat?
Yes. LiveKit Agents is open source.
How do these Pipecat alternatives compare on price?
ElevenLabs Agents: Free + $0.08/extra minute; Retell AI: Free + $0.055/min; LiveKit Agents: Free (OSS); Vapi: Free + $0.05/min; Synthflow: Custom; Bland AI: Free + $0.14/min.
Pipecat: pricing, features and stats · All AI voice agents · Find the right agent in 4 questions