Head to head · Voice agents · October 2026 research run
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic vs Retell AI API + MCP
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Retell AI API + MCP's 66.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Retell AI API + MCP leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do voice agents.
Best conversational voice-agent APIs · All 518 voice agents comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Voice agents on AWS, call centres on Amazon Connect, teams that want IAM and in-account data handling.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 95 against 60
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Retell AI API + MCP loses 3 points for them
Watch for
Connections end after 8 minutes, so long calls need the session-continuation pattern
Best for Teams that want a self-serve phone agent with clear per-component pricing, scoped keys and a choice of LLM and voice from Retell's menu.
Ahead on
- Schema & documentation, 92 against 75
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 10
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 50
Also in its favour
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Free to start without a card
Watch for
Call data kept indefinitely unless retention is set per agent
Why the edge
Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.
Reliability Amazon Nova 2 Sonic +35
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic 95
Hosted reading. AWS Health Dashboard with per-service, per-Region history (20). The dashboard history file (newest event 30 October 2026) lists no Bedrock event in the 90 days from 8 August, and the 3 September us-west-2 event names STS, Connect and IAM Identity Center, not Bedrock. The public dashboard records broad events only, so 25 of 30, as amazon-nova-embeddings was read. Quotas published, 20 concurrent requests per Region, not adjustable (15). The stream API lists ThrottlingException (429), ServiceUnavailableException (503), ModelTimeoutException (408) and ModelStreamErrorException (424), Bedrock's troubleshooting guide advises backoff with jitter, and the 8-minute connection limit comes with a session-continuation sample (15). Bedrock's SLA of 99.9 per cent a month per Region for model APIs, as read for amazon-nova-embeddings on 1 November (10). Generally available since 2 December 2025 (10). 20 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 95.
Retell AI API + MCP 60
Statuspage at status.retellai.com with an incident feed back to 10 December 2025 (20). Four incidents since 3 August 2026, read from history.atom on 1 November. Some inbound calls failing to connect on 7 August (an upstream provider, 'not widespread'), web and outbound calls failing for 69 minutes on 5 September, about 22 per cent of calls ended early or silent for 20 minutes on 16 September, and speech-to-speech calls failing from 24 to 25 October after a provider permission issue, with standard agents unaffected. We count 5 September as one major and the others as partial (10). 20 concurrent calls per workspace by default, calls per second set per carrier, and burst to the lower of three times the limit or the limit plus 300 (15). Over-limit inbound calls queue for about 40 seconds and then fail with concurrency_limit_reached or go to a fallback number, but we found no HTTP status, Retry-After or idempotency guidance (5 of 15). No SLA found for pay as you go (0). Generally available (10).
Maintenance & community Retell AI API + MCP +35
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic 50
Read as a model. The newest dated change is the May 2026 refresh, completed on 28 May, 162 days before this check (10). No Sonic release note or document history entry in the 90 days from 8 August. The pre-alpha Python SDK shipped 0.9.0, 0.10.0, 0.11.0 and 0.12.0 in the window, counted half (10 of 20). Release notes, document history, re:Post and AWS Support (10 of 15). The JavaScript Bedrock runtime client is current at 3.1163.0, while the Python route is pre-alpha (10 of 15). The SDKs ship on AWS's release train; CI not read (10). Total 50.
Retell AI API + MCP 85
TypeScript and Python SDKs v6.2.16 on 31 October 2026 (30). 19 SDK releases from 5 October to 31 October alone, plus 6.0.0 and 6.0.1 on 14 September (20). Public changelog and deprecation feed, support we didn't test (12 of 15 for a closed service). Node.js and Python SDKs current (15). SDK CI restored on 10 September (8 of 10).
Payments & pricing Retell AI API + MCP +30
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic 10
No x402, MPP or L402 (0). The Nova and Bedrock pricing pages carry a speech-to-speech table drawn by script, so the per-token prices weren't read and this line scores absent, which is our reader's limit and not the vendor's (0). New accounts get up to $200 in Free Tier credits, and the Free Tier FAQ says most new customers need no payment method, read as half on the other AWS listings (10). A person signs up for an AWS account in a browser (0). Total 10.
Retell AI API + MCP 40
No x402, MPP or L402 (0 of 40). Every component has a published per-minute price, infrastructure, voice, LLM and telephony (20). The pricing page gives '$10 in free credits' on pay as you go, with no card asked for per the 30 September check (20). Access starts with a human signup (0).
Schema & documentation Retell AI API + MCP +17
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic 75
The Bedrock service model types InvokeModelWithBidirectionalStream, but the Sonic events inside it (session, prompt, content, tool and usage events) are JSON payloads documented only in the guide, with no schema file (12 of 25). llms.txt and Markdown copies of the Nova 2 guide (10). Guides on the event lifecycle, barge-in, turn-taking, async tools and chat history say when and how to use each (16 of 20). Event fields are documented as JSON examples and tables, not typed schemas (10 of 15). Sample repositories in several languages and the API's exceptions with HTTP codes (12 of 15). Release notes and document history, with in-place model refreshes and a versioned model ID (15). Total 75.
Retell AI API + MCP 92
OpenAPI at docs.retellai.com/openapi-final.yaml (25). llms.txt with descriptive one-line summaries for each page (10). Pages say when to use a single-prompt agent and when a conversation flow (16 of 20). Typed request bodies with enums and required fields (13 of 15). Examples throughout and typed errors in the SDKs (13 of 15). A dated changelog, SDK releases and a deprecation-notice page with an RSS feed (15).
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic | Retell AI API + MCP | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 95 | 60 | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic +35 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 75 | 92 | Retell AI API + MCP +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 64 | 60 | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic +4 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 77 | 76 | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 10 | 40 | Retell AI API + MCP +30 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 50 | 85 | Retell AI API + MCP +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 79 | 77 | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | B 67.6/100 | B 66.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Amazon Nova 2 Sonic | Retell AI API + MCP |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Retell AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | https://api.retellai.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | 0 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-05-28 | 2026-10-31 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | 2026-07-20 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | none | 62 stars, 243k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |
How the scores have moved
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic
Nova 2 Sonic runs speech-to-speech conversations with asynchronous tools on Bedrock, with IAM scoping, no default storage of inputs and a 99.9 per cent SLA. Sessions cut off at 8 minutes, the Python SDK is pre-alpha, and the event payloads have no schema file. Prices are in a script-drawn table we couldn't read.
Retell AI API + MCP
Retell publishes a per-minute price for every component, from $0.07 a minute all in, and scopes API keys to read or edit. Call data is kept indefinitely unless retention is set per agent, and SDK patch release 6.2.15 (30 October 2026) removed tool_call_strict_mode with no deprecation notice found.
Before you call either
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic
- Plan a reconnect before 8 minutes and replay chat history (up to 200 KB) at the start of the new session
- Send session, prompt and content start events in order before any audio
- Make tool calls safe to repeat, since a reconnect can replay them
- Back off on
ThrottlingExceptionand stay within 20 concurrent sessions per Region - Use the polyglot voices TIFFANY or MATTHEW when callers may switch language
Retell AI API + MCP
- Give the agent a key with read scopes unless it has to change agents or place calls
- Keep MCP client confirmation on, the server marks nothing as destructive
- Set
reserved_inbound_concurrencyso outbound campaigns can't crowd out inbound calls - Handle
concurrency_limit_reachedby retrying later or enabling burst at $0.10 a minute extra - Set a data retention period on each agent that handles personal data
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Amazon Nova 2 Sonic or Retell AI API + MCP?
Amazon Nova 2 Sonic scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Retell AI API + MCP's 66.2 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Retell AI API + MCP leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.
Do Amazon Nova 2 Sonic and Retell AI API + MCP need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Amazon Nova 2 Sonic and Retell AI API + MCP without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Amazon Nova 2 Sonic. Retell AI API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.retellai.com.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/amazon-nova-sonic-vs-retell-ai.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/amazon-nova-sonic.json·/api/v1/tools/retell-ai.json - From a terminal
anchor compare amazon-nova-sonic retell-ai(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "amazon-nova-sonic", "b": "retell-ai"}at/mcp, no key