What are the best LiveKit alternatives in 2026?

Direct answer

The closest Voice Agents & Speech/Audio alternatives to LiveKit are Vapi (Pricing not published), AssemblyAI (Pricing not published), Retell AI (Pricing not published). Cartesia is the cheapest at $5/month versus $50/month for LiveKit.

⏱ Verified 32 days ago — this page pulls live from our directory and updates within 24 hours of any tracked price change.

We track 14 Voice Agents & Speech/Audio tools, and every price below is verified against the vendor's public pricing page — no estimates, no affiliate ordering. Alternatives are ranked by transparent published pricing first, then by entry price.

Just need transcription (no real-time voice)? AssemblyAI or Deepgram. Building a voice agent (not the transport)? Vapi or Retell abstract LiveKit for you. Building a video-conferencing product? Daily or 100ms compete.

Entry price alone rarely decides a migration: check the per-seat step-ups, the usage limit caps, and how often each vendor has raised prices before switching away from LiveKit.

Best LiveKit alternatives by entry price

#ToolEntry priceFree plan
1VapiPricing not published—
2AssemblyAIPricing not published—
3Retell AIPricing not published—
4DeepgramPricing not published—
5Cartesia$5/mo—
6ElevenLabs$6/mo—
7Synthflow$29/mo—
8Fonio AI$106/mo—
9Bland AI$299/mo—
10PolyAICustom pricing—

Answer generated from SaaS Price Hub's vendor-sourced pricing tracker; verification cadence varies by tool. Last updated October 4, 2026.

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