AI voice agents
Platforms and frameworks for agents that talk: answering and placing phone calls, booking appointments and handling voice support.
By weekly package downloads, the leaders are ElevenLabs Agents (2.2M), LiveKit Agents (988K), Retell AI (617K). By GitHub stars, the leaders are Pipecat (16.2K), LiveKit Agents (14.6K). The fastest grower over the last 30 days is ElevenLabs Agents, with downloads up 31%. As of Oct 6, 2026.
| # | Agent | Pulse | Downloads 7d | 7d | 30d | VS Code installs | Stars | Latest release | Price | Last 90 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 |
ElevenLabs AgentsElevenLabs |
59 | 2.2M | up 4.2% | up 30.8% | — | — | — | Free + $0.08/extra minute | ||
| 38 |
Retell AIRetell AI |
50 | 617K | up 15.6% | up 15.8% | — | — | — | Free + $0.055/min | ||
| 39 |
LiveKit AgentsLiveKit |
50 | 988K | up 12.9% | — | — | 14.6K+33/day | 1.8.45d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 41 |
VapiVapi, Inc. |
50 | 570K | up 19.8% | up 13.1% | — | — | — | Free + $0.05/min | ||
| 70 |
PipecatDaily |
39 | 260K | up 8.9% | down 17.5% | — | 16.2K+38/day | 1.12.010d ago | Free (OSS) | ||
| 129 |
SynthflowSynthflow AI |
16 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Custom | — | |
| 136 |
Bland AIBland |
12 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Free + $0.14/min | ||
| No agents match that filter. | |||||||||||
Ranks are overall positions by Pulse Score. Click a column to sort by what matters to you. Methodology.
Platform or framework
- Hosted platforms (Vapi, Retell AI, Bland AI, Synthflow, ElevenLabs Agents) give you telephony, speech recognition, a language model and a voice behind one API or builder. Faster to launch; you pay per minute and depend on the vendor.
- Open-source frameworks (LiveKit Agents, Pipecat) are libraries you run yourself, connecting the speech and model providers of your choice. More work, more control, and the per-minute cost is only what the providers charge (plus optional hosting from the framework's company).
Reading per-minute prices
Voice pricing is rarely one number. A platform fee per minute is usually added to the cost of speech-to-text, the language model, the voice and the phone line, and some vendors bundle all of these while others pass them through at provider rates. Compare the total cost of a typical call, not the headline rate. Each agent's page quotes what its pricing page says, with the date it was checked.
About the numbers
Hosted voice platforms are closed products, so the public signals are SDK downloads, site traffic rank and mentions; open-source frameworks add GitHub stars and release activity. Vendor claims about latency or resolution rates are not tested here.
Head-to-head comparisons
Related guides
Questions about AI voice agents
How much does an AI voice agent cost per minute?
Listed platform fees start at a few cents a minute, but speech recognition, the language model, the voice and telephony are often billed on top, so a full call usually costs several times the headline rate. Each product's page shows its listed unit price and what it includes.
Which AI voice agent platform is the most used?
By SDK downloads over the last 7 days, ElevenLabs Agents leads (2.2M), followed by LiveKit Agents (988K). Among open-source frameworks, Pipecat has the most GitHub stars (16.2K).
Can I build a voice agent with open-source tools?
Yes. Frameworks such as LiveKit Agents and Pipecat are open source and let you combine any speech-to-text, language model and text-to-speech provider, including self-hosted ones. You run and scale the service yourself.