iSpeech vs Kokoro TTS
iSpeech
ispeech.org
Kokoro TTS
github.comSide by side
| Figure | iSpeech | Kokoro TTS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.25/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 15 | 1 |
| Spec score · Text-to-Speech Software | 9.2 (#6) | 8.6 (#41) |
| Spec score · Text-to-speech tools | 9.2 (#11) | 8.6 (#48) |
| API access | API access requires an API key, with mobile development, mobile production, and web/general production key types. | Yes |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes |
| Export formats | aiff,mp3,ogg,wma,flac,wav,alaw,ulaw,vox,mp4 | WAV |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Languages | The homepage says the Speech API supports text-to-speech and speech recognition in more than 30 languages. | The usage documentation lists American English, British English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Mandarin Chinese. |
| Platforms | web,ios,android,api | web,windows,macos,linux,api,self_hosted |
| Support | The developer pricing page lists priority technical support with purchases; the API guide directs support requests to [email protected]. | The repository links to a Discord community for Kokoro users and contributors. |
Plans
iSpeech
- Plus$2.95 a month
- Premium$3.95 a month
- Pay Per Use$50 a month
- Pay Per Install$0.25 a month
- BasicFree
- HackerFree
- Plus$2.95 a month
- Premium$3.95 a month
- Junior$29 a month
- Pay-per-use 2,000 credits$50, paid once
In their own words
iSpeech
iSpeech provides text-to-speech and automated speech recognition through APIs, SDKs, and online tools. Its speech API can synthesize audio with multiple voices, formats, bitrates, frequencies, and playback speeds, and supports MathML and SSML. The API can also transcribe submitted audio across multiple languages and recognition models; iSpeech says custom models can be created. The homepage lists support for more than 30 languages. Audio downloads are available in AIFF, MP3, OGG, WMA, FLAC, WAV, A-law, μ-law, VOX, and MP4 formats. Listed access includes Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, Windows, API, and extension. The Basic plan is free for personal use, and commercial use is listed as available. Plus costs $2.95 a month, billed monthly, and includes 30-minute recordings, approximately 4,167 words. Premium costs $3.95 a month, billed monthly, with 12-hour recordings, approximately 100,000 words. Pay Per Use costs $50 a month for dynamic TTS usage only and includes 2,000 credits. Pay Per Install costs $0.25 a month and has a 10,000-install minimum.
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.