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Head to head · Voice calls · October 2026 research run

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP vs LiveKit Telephony

LiveKit Telephony scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Bandwidth Voice API + MCP's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do voice calls.

Bandwidth Voice API + MCPBandwidth · HTTP API B63.7/100#338 of 841 LiveKit TelephonyLiveKit Incorporated · HTTP API B67.5/100#234 of 841

Which one, for what

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP B

Good for US and Canada outbound voice agents that need capacity from day one and a carrier-owned network.

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Runs on your own machine
  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

Number rental and SIP trunking prices aren't published

LiveKit Telephony B

Good for Teams that already run voice agents on LiveKit and want phone calls to arrive in the same rooms, bringing their own carrier for outbound and international calls.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 58
  • Payments & pricing, 40 against 35
  • Maintenance & community, 90 against 78
  • Transparency & trust, 75 against 63

Also in its favour

  • Open source

Watch for

LiveKit Phone Numbers are US only and inbound only, and TransferSIPParticipant does not work on them yet

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBandwidth Voice API + MCPLiveKit TelephonyEdge
Reliability16%205865LiveKit Telephony +7
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28884Bandwidth Voice API + MCP +4
Agent ergonomics13%16.26566LiveKit Telephony +1
Security & auth14%17.56061LiveKit Telephony +1
Payments & pricing10%12.53540LiveKit Telephony +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87890LiveKit Telephony +12
Transparency & trust7%8.86375LiveKit Telephony +12
Negative events≤1500
Total63.7 · B67.5 · B

Facts side by side

FactBandwidth Voice API + MCPLiveKit Telephony
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorBandwidthLiveKit Incorporated
Hosted endpointhttps://voice.bandwidth.com/api/v2no (local only)
TransportsHTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTPHTTP
AuthOAuthAPI key
PricingPay per useFreemium
x402nono
LicencenoneProprietary cloud service under LiveKit's Terms of Service. The SIP service (livekit/sip), the protocol definitions, the CLI and the server SDKs are Apache 2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-09-222026-10-08
Terms last updated2025-09-11no date given
Privacy policy last updated2026-08-25no date given
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textyes
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity2 stars, 13k npm/wk, 39k PyPI/wk480 stars, 2.9M npm/wk, 1.7M PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP

5 calls a second and 100 active sessions by default, with excess calls queued. Number rental and SIP trunking prices aren't published.

LiveKit Telephony

Signed tokens separate the right to dial (sip.call) from the right to manage trunks (sip.admin), and per-minute prices are public with a free plan that needs no card. LiveKit's own phone numbers are US only and inbound only, so outbound calls need a third-party SIP trunk, and no 429 or retry guidance was found.

Before you call either

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP

  1. Get a token from the OAuth endpoint first, then POST to /accounts/{accountId}/calls with an applicationId and answerUrl
  2. Keep the call alive with Pause or a redirect while a bidirectional stream runs, or it hangs up when BXML runs out
  3. Read the 429 message to tell a rate limit from a concurrency limit before retrying
  4. Load the MCP server with BW_MCP_PROFILE=voice to keep the tool list short

LiveKit Telephony

  1. Ask the operator for a short-lived token with only the sip.call grant to dial or transfer. Trunk, dispatch rule and number changes need sip.admin
  2. Use a third-party outbound trunk for outbound calls. LiveKit Phone Numbers only receive calls
  3. Set wait_until_answered on CreateSIPParticipant and read the SIP status on SipCallError before retrying. Voicemail answers with 200 OK
  4. Send every request as a JSON POST to /twirp/livekit.SIP/<Method> or /twirp/livekit.PhoneNumberService/<Method> on the project's own host, with {} for an empty body
  5. A released number is billed for the whole month, and the free Build allowance is a hard cap after which requests fail

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Bandwidth Voice API + MCP or LiveKit Telephony?

LiveKit Telephony scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Bandwidth Voice API + MCP's 63.7 (B), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

Do Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony need an API key?

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP uses an OAuth sign-in. LiveKit Telephony needs an API key.

Can an agent call Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony without installing anything?

Bandwidth Voice API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://voice.bandwidth.com/api/v2. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiveKit Telephony.

Are Bandwidth Voice API + MCP and LiveKit Telephony open source?

No open-source release is listed for Bandwidth Voice API + MCP. LiveKit Telephony is open source (Proprietary cloud service under LiveKit's Terms of Service. The SIP service (livekit/sip), the protocol definitions, the CLI and the server SDKs are Apache 2.0).

Other comparisons with Bandwidth Voice API + MCP or LiveKit Telephony

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