LiveKit Agents vs Deepgram Voice Agent API

LiveKit Agents9.2Visit Deepgram Voice Agent API9.0Visit

Higher score LiveKit Agents #3 in AI Voice Agents 9.2/10 Free plan Free plan✓ 4 of 4 features Visit LiveKit

vs

Deepgram Voice Agent API #5 in AI Voice Agents 9.0/10 Paid ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Deepgram

• LiveKit Agents fits best

  Developers building realtime voice agents

• Deepgram Voice Agent API fits best

  Developers building customizable voice infrastructure

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Side by side

Feature	LiveKit Agents 9.2/10 Visit ↗	Deepgram Voice Agent API 9.0/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.2	9.0
Ranking	#3 in AI Voice Agents	#5 in AI Voice Agents
Best for	Developers building realtime voice agents	Developers building customizable voice infrastructure
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Paid
Starting price	$50/mo	$0.06 usage-based
Free plan	✓ (best)	—
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Self-hosted	Cloud, Self-hosted
Integrations	11 integrations	11 integrations
Features LiveKit Agents 4/4 · Deepgram Voice Agent API 4/4
Inbound calls	✓	✓
Outbound calls	✓	✓
Human handoff	✓	✓
Custom phone numbers	✓	✓
Specs
Supported languages	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Concurrent calls	20 calls	45 calls (best)
Our review
Pros	Connects pluggable LLM, STT, TTS, and realtime model providers Supports inbound and outbound telephony, transfers, and agent handoffs Includes testing, recordings, transcripts, traces, and logs	One WebSocket pipeline combines speech recognition, LLM processing and speech output. Choose LLM and TTS providers, with function calling and turn-taking controls. Supports inbound and outbound telephony plus self-hosted deployment.
Cons	Building with the framework requires developer-led implementation Ship starts at $50/month; Scale is $500/month The listed feature set may be broader than needed for simple voice bots	Requires development work to configure and build voice-agent applications. Per-minute pricing varies by tier and provider choices. Custom - BYO LLM + TTS has no listed per-minute rate.
Our verdict	LiveKit Agents is an open-source framework for building programmable, realtime voice and multimodal AI agents. It is aimed at developers and teams creating conversational voice applications or other realtime AI experiences. Agents can run… Read the review →	Deepgram Voice Agent API gives developers a streaming foundation for real-time voice applications, combining speech-to-text, LLM orchestration and text-to-speech over a single WebSocket connection. It is aimed at developers and enterprises… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• LiveKit Agents — where it wins

  • Connects pluggable LLM, STT, TTS, and realtime model providers
  • Supports inbound and outbound telephony, transfers, and agent handoffs
  • Includes testing, recordings, transcripts, traces, and logs

  Where it doesn't

  • Building with the framework requires developer-led implementation
  • Ship starts at $50/month; Scale is $500/month
  • The listed feature set may be broader than needed for simple voice bots

• Deepgram Voice Agent API — where it wins

  • One WebSocket pipeline combines speech recognition, LLM processing and speech output.
  • Choose LLM and TTS providers, with function calling and turn-taking controls.
  • Supports inbound and outbound telephony plus self-hosted deployment.

  Where it doesn't

  • Requires development work to configure and build voice-agent applications.
  • Per-minute pricing varies by tier and provider choices.
  • Custom - BYO LLM + TTS has no listed per-minute rate.

• LiveKit Agents9.2/10 · Free plan

  An open framework for building realtime voice agents, with optional managed cloud plans.

  Visit LiveKitFull verdict →
• Deepgram Voice Agent API9.0/10 · Paid

  A configurable voice-agent stack with provider choice, telephony and self-hosting.

  Visit DeepgramFull verdict →