Retell AI vs Pipecat

Retell AI9.4Visit Pipecat9.1Visit

Higher score Retell AI #1 in AI Voice Agents 9.4/10 Paid ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Retell AI

vs

Pipecat #4 in AI Voice Agents 9.1/10 Open source ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Pipecat

• Retell AI fits best

  Teams needing practical phone automation quickly

• Pipecat fits best

  Teams building composable voice pipelines

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Side by side

Feature	Retell AI 9.4/10 Visit ↗	Pipecat 9.1/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.4	9.1
Ranking	#1 in AI Voice Agents	#4 in AI Voice Agents
Best for	Teams needing practical phone automation quickly	Teams building composable voice pipelines
Pricing model	Paid	Free
Starting price	$0.07 usage-based	Free
Free plan	—	Not checked yet
Free trial	—	—
Deployment	Cloud	Cloud, Mobile, Self-hosted
Platforms	Web	Web, iOS, Android
Integrations	12 integrations	12 integrations
Features Retell AI 4/4 · Pipecat 4/4
Inbound calls	✓	✓
Outbound calls	✓	✓
Human handoff	✓	✓
Custom phone numbers	✓	✓
Specs
Supported languages	55 languages	Not checked yet
Concurrent calls	20 calls	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Handles inbound calls, outbound campaigns, IVR, and DTMF navigation Transfers callers with transcript context and supports knowledge-base responses Includes analytics, transcripts, simulation testing, and CRM integrations	Combines audio, video, text, image, AI-service, and transport components Supports multi-agent handoffs, parallel execution, and PSTN/SIP calling Offers CLI deployment workflows plus metrics, traces, and OpenTelemetry
Cons	Usage-based pricing can vary by model, voice, telephony, and add-ons Enterprise features such as SSO and role-based access require custom pricing The platform is focused on business phone operations rather than general voice use	Building agents requires assembling pipeline components Pipecat Cloud hosting is priced per active agent minute The listed Cloud profiles range from voice-only to voice-and-video workloads
Our verdict	Retell AI is a platform for building, testing, deploying, and monitoring AI voice agents for business phone operations. It supports inbound call answering, outbound batch calling, appointment booking, record updates, IVR navigation, DTMF… Read the review →	Pipecat is an open-source Python framework for developers building real-time voice and multimodal conversational agents. Its composable pipelines cover speech recognition, language models, text-to-speech, transport, tools, and conversation… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Retell AI — where it wins

  • Handles inbound calls, outbound campaigns, IVR, and DTMF navigation
  • Transfers callers with transcript context and supports knowledge-base responses
  • Includes analytics, transcripts, simulation testing, and CRM integrations

  Where it doesn't

  • Usage-based pricing can vary by model, voice, telephony, and add-ons
  • Enterprise features such as SSO and role-based access require custom pricing
  • The platform is focused on business phone operations rather than general voice use

• Pipecat — where it wins

  • Combines audio, video, text, image, AI-service, and transport components
  • Supports multi-agent handoffs, parallel execution, and PSTN/SIP calling
  • Offers CLI deployment workflows plus metrics, traces, and OpenTelemetry

  Where it doesn't

  • Building agents requires assembling pipeline components
  • Pipecat Cloud hosting is priced per active agent minute
  • The listed Cloud profiles range from voice-only to voice-and-video workloads

• Retell AI9.4/10 · Paid

  Practical inbound and outbound phone automation with transfers, testing, and analytics.

  Visit Retell AIFull verdict →
• Pipecat9.1/10 · Open source

  A composable Python framework for building and deploying voice and multimodal agents.

  Visit PipecatFull verdict →