Chatterbox TTS vs Kokoro TTS
Chatterbox TTS
github.com
Kokoro TTS
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Chatterbox TTS | Kokoro TTS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Text-to-Speech Software | 9.0 (#9) | 8.6 (#41) |
| Spec score · AI voice generators | 9.0 (#2) | 8.5 (#11) |
| Spec score · Text-to-speech tools | 8.9 (#21) | 8.6 (#48) |
| Spec score · Game Voice Generators | 8.9 (#6) | 8.4 (#16) |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes |
| Export formats | WAV | WAV |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Languages | The README lists 23 supported languages for Chatterbox Multilingual. | The usage documentation lists American English, British English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese. |
| License | The code and model listing identify the project as MIT licensed, permitting modification and redistribution subject to the license notice. | The model weights are Apache-licensed, and the maker says Kokoro can be deployed in production or personal projects. |
| Platforms | linux,macos,self_hosted | web,windows,macos,linux,api,self_hosted |
| Support | The README invites users to join the project’s Discord community. | The repository links to a Discord community for Kokoro users and contributors. |
| Voice cloning | Models can generate speech conditioned on a short reference audio clip. | No |
Plans
Chatterbox TTS
- Chatterbox open-source modelsFree
- Voice AI Research (Chatterbox)Free
In their own words
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.
Kokoro TTS
Kokoro TTS is an open-weight text-to-speech model with 82 million parameters. It uses a decoder-only architecture built with StyleTTS 2 and ISTFTNet, and supports eight languages. In the documented Python pipeline, users can choose a voice and adjust speech speed; generated audio is 24 kHz and can be saved as WAV. The kokoro.js library runs the model locally in a browser through Transformers.js, also documents Node CPU use, and supports streaming speech as text is added. The model weights use the Apache license, and commercial use is listed as permitted. The maker describes Kokoro as lightweight and more cost-efficient than larger models while delivering comparable quality. Python installation uses kokoro, soundfile, and espeak-ng, with Misaki handling grapheme-to-phoneme processing. The README includes Windows setup guidance for espeak-ng and Apple Silicon GPU instructions for macOS M1 through M4. Examples point to Google Colab and a Hugging Face demo. Kokoro is free, with a free plan listed at free.