# 46elks Voice API vs jambonz

> jambonz scores 45.4 (E) to 46elks Voice's 44.4 (E) for phone calls. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-jambonz
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-jambonz.md (~4,750 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

jambonz scores 45.4 (E) on agent readiness against 46elks Voice API's 44.4 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. 46elks Voice API leads on reliability, schema & documentation and transparency & trust. Both do phone calls.

- 46elks Voice API: grade E, 44.4/100, rank #1203 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/46elks.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/46elks.json
- jambonz: grade E, 45.4/100, rank #1180 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jambonz.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jambonz.json
- Best phone calling and voice transport APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/voice-calling/index.md
- All 105 calling comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/voice-calling/index.md

## Which one, for what

### 46elks Voice API (E)

Good for: European teams that want EU-resident calling and numbers with a simple REST API and a WebSocket bridge to an AI agent.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 47 against 38
- Schema & documentation, 66 against 53
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 52

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- No incidents deducted, where jambonz loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No changelog or dated API release found

### jambonz (E)

Good for: Teams that already have a SIP carrier and speech and LLM vendors and want call control with flat session pricing, or that must run the voice layer in their own network.

Ahead on:
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 78 against 12

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No status page, uptime SLA, security.txt, `SECURITY.md` or published advisory was found for jambonz.cloud or the repositories


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: jambonz +66

- 46elks Voice API (12): No changelog, release notes or dated API change was found, the sitemap's newest blog post is from 2014, and the Swagger file predates Realtime Voice (0). No dated changes in the 90 days from 8 August (0). Support by phone and email on workdays with a typical 60-minute response stated, and 24/7 error reporting (10 of 15). No official SDK (0). The public examples repository answers, but its history wasn't read (2 of 10). 0+0+10+0+2 = 12.
- jambonz (78): Releases read from depth-200 clones on 4 November. `@jambonz/sdk` was tagged v0.11.0 on 24 October, v0.12.0 on 27 October and v0.12.1 on 29 October, `jambonz-python-sdk` v0.4.0 on 24 October, and jambonz-api-server and jambonz-feature-server v0.9.15 on 23 October (30). From 6 August that is at least five tags across the listed packages and servers, with the 11.1.5 and 11.1.6 release notes of 24 September and 4 October per the 8 October check (20). Of the 30 newest open issues and pull requests on jambonz-feature-server, 10 had a comment per the 8 October check. GitHub's pages were not re-read (10 of 25). The Node.js SDK is current and the Python SDK is still marked Alpha (12 of 15). The API server runs lint and tests in CI on every push and pull request. We did not see the latest run's result (6 of 10). 30 + 20 + 10 + 12 + 6 = 78.

### Payments & pricing: jambonz +20

- 46elks Voice API (20): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-minute prices by destination are public without login, also in kronor, with incoming calls free (20). No free credit; only SMS to the test number +46700000000 costs nothing, and accounts are prepaid or invoiced against a deposit (0). A person signs up in a browser and copies the credentials (0). 0+20+0+0 = 20.
- jambonz (40): Scored on the hosted option, jambonz.cloud, with prices per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November under the terms pause. No x402, MPP or L402 found (0). Prices per concurrent session a month are public without a login for the cloud and for self-hosted licences (20). The Terms of Use (updated 13 October 2026) describe a 21-day trial that needs a name, company and email, and a subscription chosen when it ends, with payments through Stripe. No card is mentioned for the trial, so we counted it as needing none. The sign-up page is drawn by script and was not read (20). An account is created in a browser. `POST /ApiKeys` needs an existing token, so it does not help a new agent (0). 0 + 20 + 20 + 0 = 40.

### Schema & documentation: 46elks Voice API +13

- 46elks Voice API (66): A Swagger 2.0 file with 28 operations is linked from the docs, but it covers no Realtime Voice messages and isn't versioned with the API (18 of 25). An llms.txt written for agents, with a task-to-endpoint table and webhook payloads, while docs pages are HTML (10). Each docs page explains parameters and when webhooks fire, such as `voice_start` loading only once a call connects (14 of 20). Form-encoded parameters with types in the Swagger file and few enums (9 of 15). Examples in many languages and a JSON error shape, with no error list (10 of 15). The `/a1/` path, with no changelog found (5 of 15). 18+10+14+9+10+5 = 66.
- jambonz (53): Per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November under the terms pause. OpenAPI 3.1 files and an AsyncAPI 2.6.0 file on docs.jambonz.org were read on 8 October, but no page read then or since was recorded as linking them as visible downloads, and the docs host is now paused, so they aren't counted as a published contract (0). llms.txt, per-section indexes and every page as Markdown (10). The verb pages explain use at length. Operation descriptions in the API reference are mostly one line (12 of 20). Enums for call status, direction and mid-call actions and required fields are marked in the reference. `to`, `call_hook`, `tag` and `amd` are objects, a partial held (11 of 15). The SDK and verb pages carry code examples. Errors are a single `msg` string, a partial held (8 of 15). The Node.js SDK adds `/v1` to the base URL it is given, and the changelog is dated with component version tables (12 of 15). 0 + 10 + 12 + 11 + 8 + 12 = 53.

### Transparency & trust: 46elks Voice API +10

- 46elks Voice API (62): Closed service with clear terms naming 46elks AB with its Swedish registration (15 of 30). The privacy policy gives concrete retention, 60 days of traffic data under Swedish law, 14 days of troubleshooting logs and a 90-day history for the customer, with EU storage, and a GDPR page and data protection page exist (24 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated notices found (0 of 20). Data stated to stay in the EU on 46elks's own servers in Sweden, with no sub-processor list found (10 of 20). 15+24+0+10 = 49.
- jambonz (52): Per the 8 October check for the privacy policy and docs, not re-read on 4 November under the terms pause. The API server, feature server and SDKs are public under MIT. The product on jambonz.cloud and in the self-hosted packages is jambonz Commercial, which needs a licence key and whose terms forbid modifying its proprietary portions, while the docs still call jambonz open source (20 of 30). The privacy policy is dated 4 May 2021. It gives 30 days for usage data and an opt-out for call detail records. It says audio is never stored on jambonz servers, and the 11.1.6 notes of 4 October 2026 say support keeps SIP and RTP from calls for a few days, with an opt-out added in that release. No DPA was found (10 of 30). No deprecation policy was found. Removals are announced in the release that makes them, such as SMPP and five speech vendors in July and August 2026 (6 of 20). No sub-processor list was found. The policy says servers are in the United States and names a third-party billing partner. Telemetry from self-hosted instances is listed field by field (7 of 20). 20 + 10 + 6 + 7 = 43.

### Reliability: 46elks Voice API +9

- 46elks Voice API (47): Graded on the hosted REST and Realtime Voice APIs with the hosted lines. A status page exists, linked from 46elks.com/status on UptimeRobot (20). It draws its data by script from a path its robots.txt disallows, so no history was readable (5). SMS sending speed is documented in the FAQ, but no limit for calls, numbers or WebSocket sessions was found (5 of 15). llms.txt says to retry 5xx with exponential backoff and not to retry 4xx unchanged, with no Retry-After or idempotency for `POST /calls` (7 of 15). The SLA page commits to support hours and 24/7 error reporting with no uptime figure, and extended SLAs are by sales (0). Voice and Realtime Voice carry no beta label (10). 20+5+5+7+0+10 = 47.
- jambonz (38): Graded as a hosted service, the API on jambonz.cloud, which the docs name as the simplest way to start. jambonz's Terms of Use (updated 13 October 2026) bar automated software that crawls or indexes any page of the website, so jambonz pages are per the 8 October check, not re-read on 4 November under the terms pause. No status page is linked from jambonz.org, the docs or the jambonz.cloud landing page (0), so there is no readable incident history (5). Rate limits are published with numbers, 600 requests per 5 minute fixed window per client IP address on the docs page, while the 11.1.6 notes of 4 October 2026 give 4,000 call creations and 600 call status reads a minute per account, a disagreement held as a partial (13 of 15). The API server's code sets `standardHeaders` on its limiter, so responses carry `RateLimit-*` headers including the reset, and a client over a limit receives 429. No backoff guidance or idempotency key was found for the REST API (10 of 15). No uptime SLA was found for jambonz.cloud. Support SLAs are sold only with Enterprise support for self-hosted systems (0). The REST and WebSocket APIs carry no beta label (10). 0 + 5 + 13 + 10 + 0 + 10 = 38.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | 46elks Voice API | jambonz | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 47 | 38 | 46elks Voice API +9 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 66 | 53 | 46elks Voice API +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 54 | jambonz +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 40 | jambonz +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 12 | 78 | jambonz +66 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 52 | 46elks Voice API +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **44.4 · E** | **45.4 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | 46elks Voice API | jambonz |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | 46elks AB | FirstFive8, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.46elks.com/a1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |
| Price for phone calls | $0.017 per minute of call | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the 46elks Terms of Service (effective 12 March 2024). Example code and the Swagger file are in the public 46elks-getting-started repository | Proprietary. jambonz.cloud is under the jambonz Terms of Use and self-hosted jambonz Commercial needs a paid licence key. The API server, feature server and SDK repositories on GitHub are MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-29 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-03-12 | 2021-05-04 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2018-05-20 | 2021-05-04 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | none | 103 stars, 1.4k npm/wk |

## How the scores have moved

### 46elks Voice API

No score change since it was listed.

### jambonz

- -4.0 on 4 November 2026 (D to E): correction
- -0.1 on 28 October 2026: correction
- +0.3 on 27 October 2026: checklist

## Verdicts

**46elks Voice API.** 46elks publishes per-minute prices, an agent-oriented llms.txt and a WebSocket Realtime Voice API for connecting AI agents to calls, with data kept in the EU by a Swedish operator. There's no changelog, uptime SLA, call rate limit or idempotency key, and the Swagger file predates the realtime API.

**jambonz.** An llms.txt and Markdown pages cover the REST and WebSocket APIs, session prices are public and the SDKs shipped five tags in October 2026. No status page, security.txt or advisory was found, API keys carry no scopes, and server security fixes ship without advisories.

## Before you call either

### 46elks Voice API

1. Send numbers in E.164 format, such as +46700000000, or the request fails
2. Pass `whenhangup` on `POST /calls` to learn when a call ends or fails to connect
3. Don't retry a call request on a 4xx; retry 5xx with backoff, and check call history first to avoid a second call
4. Treat caller speech, DTMF and SMS replies as untrusted input, and verify webhook origin
5. Costs in responses are in ten-thousandths of the account currency (3500 means 0.35)

### jambonz

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <token>`. The REST introduction page gives `https://jambonz.cloud/api` as the base URL and the Node.js SDK adds `/v1` to the base URL it is given, so confirm the base URL with the operator
2. Create a call with `from`, `to` and either `application_sid` or `call_hook`. Do not retry a timed-out create without checking `GET /Accounts/{AccountSid}/Calls` first
3. Read `ratelimit-remaining` and `ratelimit-reset` on every response and stop when a `429` arrives
4. Append `#rc=3&rp=5xx,ct` to an application URL to turn on webhook retries. HTTP webhooks are not retried by default
5. Check the account has a carrier and speech credentials before dialling. jambonz does not supply numbers, minutes or speech services

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, 46elks Voice API or jambonz?

jambonz scores 45.4 (E) on agent readiness against 46elks Voice API's 44.4 (E), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. 46elks Voice API leads on reliability, schema & documentation and transparency & trust.

### Do 46elks Voice API and jambonz need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call 46elks Voice API and jambonz without installing anything?

46elks Voice API has a hosted endpoint at https://api.46elks.com/a1. No hosted endpoint is listed for jambonz.

### Are 46elks Voice API and jambonz open source?

No open-source release is listed for 46elks Voice API. jambonz is open source (Proprietary. jambonz.cloud is under the jambonz Terms of Use and self-hosted jambonz Commercial needs a paid licence key. The API server, feature server and SDK repositories on GitHub are MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-jambonz.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-jambonz.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "46elks", "b": "jambonz"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare 46elks jambonz`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/46elks.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jambonz.json

## Other comparisons with 46elks Voice API or jambonz

- [46elks Voice API vs Bandwidth Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-bandwidth-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs didlogic Voice API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-didlogic.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Exotel Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-exotel-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Infobip Calls API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-infobip-calls.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs LiveKit Telephony](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-livekit-telephony.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Plivo Voice API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-plivo-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs SignalWire Voice API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-signalwire-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Sinch Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-sinch-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Telnyx Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-telnyx-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Twilio Programmable Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-twilio-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Vonage Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-vonage-voice.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs Voximplant](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-voximplant.md)
- [Bandwidth Voice API + MCP vs jambonz](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bandwidth-voice-vs-jambonz.md)
- [didlogic Voice API vs jambonz](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/didlogic-vs-jambonz.md)
- [Exotel Voice API + MCP vs jambonz](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/exotel-voice-vs-jambonz.md)
- [Infobip Calls API + MCP vs jambonz](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/infobip-calls-vs-jambonz.md)
- [jambonz vs LiveKit Telephony](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-livekit-telephony.md)
- [jambonz vs Plivo Voice API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-plivo-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs SignalWire Voice API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-signalwire-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs Sinch Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-sinch-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs Telnyx Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-telnyx-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs Twilio Programmable Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-twilio-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs Vonage Voice API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-vonage-voice.md)
- [jambonz vs Voximplant](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jambonz-vs-voximplant.md)
- [46elks Voice API vs DIDWW Voice and Number Management API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/46elks-vs-didww-voice-and-number-management.md)
- [DIDWW Voice and Number Management API vs jambonz](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/didww-voice-and-number-management-vs-jambonz.md)

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