Cartesia Sonic vs Chatterbox TTS
Cartesia Sonic
cartesia.ai
Chatterbox TTS
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Cartesia Sonic | Chatterbox TTS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 2 |
| Spec score · Text-to-Speech Software | 8.7 (#28) | 9.0 (#9) |
| Spec score · Text-to-speech tools | 8.7 (#33) | 8.9 (#21) |
| Spec score · AI voice generators | 8.7 (#8) | 9.0 (#2) |
| Spec score · Game Voice Generators | 8.6 (#12) | 8.9 (#6) |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Languages | Sonic supports 44 languages. | The README lists 23 supported languages for Chatterbox Multilingual. |
| Platforms | web,api | linux,macos,self_hosted |
| Product | Sonic is a text-to-speech model for real-time voice applications. | Chatterbox is a family of open-source text-to-speech models by Resemble AI. |
| Support | Cartesia's documentation directs users to Discord to chat with the Cartesia team and community for help. | The README invites users to join the project’s Discord community. |
| Voice cloning | Instant voice cloning can use 10 seconds of audio, while Pro Voice Clone training uses 30 minutes or more from one speaker. | Models can generate speech conditioned on a short reference audio clip. |
Plans
Cartesia Sonic
- FreeFree
- Pro$5 a month
- Startup$49 a month
- Scale$299 a month
- FreeFree
- EnterprisePriced on request
Chatterbox TTS
- Chatterbox open-source modelsFree
- Voice AI Research (Chatterbox)Free
In their own words
Cartesia Sonic
Cartesia Sonic is a text-to-speech model for real-time voice applications, available through the web and an API. It has sub-90ms latency and supports 44 languages. Sonic can interpret emotional subtext and add non-verbal expressions such as laughter to transcripts. Its localization feature carries emotion, tone, and speaker identity into another language, while custom pronunciation dictionaries let users set how proper nouns and domain terms are spoken. For voice agents, Managed Agents combine Ink-2 speech-to-text, a selected LLM, and Sonic-3.6 text-to-speech, with turn-taking and interruption handling. Phone connectivity can use Cartesia-provisioned numbers, imported Twilio numbers, or a carrier over SIP. Cartesia lists HIPAA compliance, SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and PCI. It says Sonic can be deployed on-premise, in a customer VPC on AWS, GCP, or Azure, or through OEM licensing. A free plan includes 20K credits per month and two concurrent text-to-speech requests. Paid plans start at $5/mo; higher tiers raise credit allowances and list capabilities including organizations and priority support.
Chatterbox TTS
Chatterbox TTS is a family of open-source text-to-speech models from Resemble AI. Its listed choices include Turbo, Nano, Multilingual V3, and dedicated single-language models. Turbo supports tags that can prompt reactions such as sighs, gasps, coughs, and laughter; Nano is intended for on-device or CPU use when memory and latency budgets are tight. The README lists 23 languages for Multilingual. The project supports voice cloning, audio input, batch processing, voice isolation, and WAV export. Generated audio carries Resemble AI’s PerTh watermark. The repository is MIT licensed, and its listed plan costs nothing for research and development. Resemble says it has stopped offering voice generation as a commercial product, while its models remain open and free for research and development. The README provides pip and source installation instructions and describes Python 3.11 on Debian 11, with CUDA, CPU, and MPS device options. Listed platforms are Linux, macOS, and self-hosted.