LiveKit Agents vs Pipecat
LiveKit Agents
livekit.com
Pipecat
pipecat.aiSide by side
| Figure | LiveKit Agents | Pipecat |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $50/mo | $0.01/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 7 |
| Spec score · AI Voice Agents | 9.1 (#1) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Spec score · Conversational AI Platforms | 9.1 (#2) | 8.9 (#5) |
| Client SDKs | LiveKit offers frontend and client SDKs for web, mobile, and other platforms, while its Unity SDK supports macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android. | Official client SDKs are available for JavaScript, React, React Native, Swift, Kotlin, C++, and ESP32. |
| Deployment | Agents can be deployed to LiveKit Cloud or to a custom environment of the developer’s choice. | Pipecat can run on self-managed infrastructure wherever Python runs or be deployed to Pipecat Cloud, which provides scaling and observability. |
| Integrations | LiveKit Inference provides models from providers including OpenAI, Google, AssemblyAI, Deepgram, Cartesia, and ElevenLabs, while open source plugins connect to additional providers. | LinkedIn describes 60-plus LLM and service integrations, multi-vendor telephony, function calling, cross-platform libraries and HTTP, WebSocket and WebRTC networking. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.8 out of 5 from 2 reviews | 0.0 out of 5 from 0 reviews |
| Self-hosting | Organizations can run LiveKit servers and Agents on local machines, virtual machines, Kubernetes, or distributed multi-region infrastructure. | Pipecat runs wherever Python runs and can be deployed on the user's own infrastructure. |
| Support | Build includes community support, Ship includes email support, and Enterprise includes a support SLA. | The Pipecat homepage offers enterprise support and FDE hours for architecture reviews, latency tuning, and custom deployments. |
| What it does | LiveKit Agents is a realtime framework and cloud platform for building voice, video, and physical AI agents. | Pipecat is an open-source Python framework for real-time voice and multimodal conversational agents. |
Plans
LiveKit Agents
- BuildFree
- Ship$50 a month
- Scale$500 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
Pipecat
- Pipecat Cloud agent-1x reservedFree
- Pipecat frameworkFree
- Pipecat Cloud$0.01 a month
- Pipecat Cloud agent-1x active$0.01 a month
- Pipecat Cloud agent-2x active$0.02 a month
- Pipecat Cloud agent-3x active$0.03 a month
- Pipecat Cloud EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
LiveKit Agents
LiveKit Agents is an open source framework and cloud platform for building voice, video, and physical AI agents. Python or Node.js programs can join LiveKit rooms as realtime participants, and deployments can run on LiveKit Cloud or a developer-chosen environment. Agents can process realtime voice, video, and text input and produce output in any modality. The framework supports LLM tool use, frontend RPC calls, multi-agent handoffs, and connections to phone systems through native SIP. LiveKit Inference provides models from providers including OpenAI, Google, AssemblyAI, Deepgram, Cartesia, and ElevenLabs; open source plugins connect to other providers. LiveKit Cloud includes agent insights such as session replay, transcripts, trace spans, logs, and reports. The free Build plan includes 1,000 agent session minutes, five concurrent sessions, and one deployment. Ship starts at $50 a month and includes 5,000 minutes, then $0.01. LiveKit says prompts, audio, and completions handled by LiveKit Inference and its model providers are not logged or retained. It lists SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA / CPRA, and the EU–US Data Privacy Framework; PCI DSS and ISO 27001 are in progress.
Pipecat
Pipecat is an open-source ecosystem for building voice and multimodal AI agents. Its pipelines can handle voice, video, text, and images, with control over individual frames in a conversation. Because frames move through the pipeline as they are produced, an agent can begin responding before a person has finished speaking. The framework includes interruption handling, turn detection, context management, subagent handoffs, and Pipecat Flows, and its homepage lists more than 200 providers and services for speech, language, and vision. Transports include WebRTC, SIP, and PSTN, alongside client SDKs, a UI kit, metrics, traces, and OpenTelemetry. Teams can run it on infrastructure that supports Python or deploy it to Pipecat Cloud, which adds scaling and observability. Cloud capabilities include telephony, noise cancellation, monitoring, recordings, and persistent transcription storage. Pipecat Cloud is listed at $0.001 per participant minute for Daily WebRTC voice and $0.004 per participant minute for voice and video; connected third-party services using customer keys are billed by their providers.