# Bolna API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents

> LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) to Bolna's 52.6 (D) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-livekit-agents
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-livekit-agents.md (~3,000 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-livekit-agents.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: 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)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-17

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Bolna API + MCP's 52.6 (D), and leads in every scored category. Both do voice agents.

- Bolna API + MCP: grade D, 52.6/100, rank #814 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bolna.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bolna.json
- LiveKit Agents: grade BB, 72.5/100, rank #104 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/livekit-agents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-agents.json
- Best conversational voice-agent APIs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/voice-agents/index.md
- All 184 voice agents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/voice-agents/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Bolna API + MCP (D)

Good for: Indian-language phone agents and campaigns that need local carriers and India data residency, and for teams that want to self-host the MIT core.

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Unsigned webhooks and tool calls, IP allowlisting only

### LiveKit Agents (BB)

Good for: Teams writing their own voice agents in Python or Node.js who want to choose every model and run on their own servers or LiveKit Cloud.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 67 against 50
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 63
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 52
- Security & auth, 62 against 44
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 76
- Transparency & trust, 82 against 66

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Free to start without a card
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.0 against 2.5 out of 5

Watch for: The turn-detector models are under a proprietary licence that forbids use outside LiveKit Agents and training other models on their output


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Bolna API + MCP | LiveKit Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 50 | 67 | LiveKit Agents +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 81 | LiveKit Agents +18 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 52 | 80 | LiveKit Agents +28 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 44 | 62 | LiveKit Agents +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | LiveKit Agents +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 76 | 85 | LiveKit Agents +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 66 | 82 | LiveKit Agents +16 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **52.6 · D** | **72.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Bolna API + MCP | LiveKit Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Bolna | LiveKit Incorporated |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.bolna.ai` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |  |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Free |
| Price for voice agents | not published | $0.005 per minute of audio |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 for the framework and plugins. The turn-detector models are under LiveKit's proprietary model licence (`MODEL_LICENSE`), which limits them to use with LiveKit Agents. LiveKit Cloud and LiveKit Inference are closed services under LiveKit's terms |
| Tools exposed | 84 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-13 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-03-28 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| 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 | 779 stars, 579 npm/wk, 2.6k PyPI/wk | 15k stars, 820k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Bolna API + MCP.** Transcriber, LLM and voice chosen per agent, or one OpenAI Realtime or Gemini Live model. Unsigned webhooks and tool calls, IP allowlisting only.

**LiveKit Agents.** An Apache-2.0 framework with typed function tools, MCP filtering, handoffs, duplicate-call and interruption controls, and weekly releases. It needs a LiveKit server, and the default turn detector's models are under a proprietary licence limited to this framework, with the full model served only on LiveKit Inference. No approval primitive or prompt-injection guidance was found.

## Before you call either

### Bolna API + MCP

1. Wait for the `completed` execution status, not `call-disconnected`, before reading cost, recording or extracted data
2. Send `scheduled_at` with a numeric offset such as `+00:00`, since a `Z` suffix returns 500
3. Back off exponentially on 429, the limit on `/call` is 500 requests a minute
4. Reject webhook and tool requests that don't come from 13.203.39.153, 13.126.9.249 or 13.202.133.53
5. Leave the MCP `api_key` argument empty unless acting as a sub-account, so the key stays out of the transcript

### LiveKit Agents

1. Set `LIVEKIT_URL`, `LIVEKIT_API_KEY` and `LIVEKIT_API_SECRET` before starting. Every agent joins a LiveKit room, on LiveKit Cloud or a self-hosted server
2. Pass `inference.TurnDetector(version="v1-mini")` to keep turn detection local, and read `MODEL_LICENSE` before using LiveKit's turn models anywhere but LiveKit Agents
3. Pass `record=False`, or a dict per category, to `session.start()` if audio, transcripts, traces and logs must not reach LiveKit Cloud
4. Call `context.disallow_interruptions()` first in tools that write, and set `on_duplicate="reject"` or `"confirm"`. Duplicates are matched by tool name only, not arguments
5. Wrap MCP servers in `mcp.MCPToolset` with `allowed_tools` (Python only). The `mcp_servers` parameter is deprecated

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Bolna API + MCP or LiveKit Agents?

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Bolna API + MCP's 52.6 (D), and leads in every scored category.

### Can an agent call Bolna API + MCP and LiveKit Agents without installing anything?

Bolna API + MCP has a hosted endpoint at https://api.bolna.ai. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiveKit Agents.

### Are Bolna API + MCP and LiveKit Agents open source?

Yes. Bolna API + MCP is open source (MIT). LiveKit Agents is open source (Apache-2.0 for the framework and plugins. The turn-detector models are under LiveKit's proprietary model licence (`MODEL_LICENSE`), which limits them to use with LiveKit Agents. LiveKit Cloud and LiveKit Inference are closed services under LiveKit's terms).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Bolna API + MCP or LiveKit Agents

- [AssemblyAI Voice Agent API vs Bolna API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-voice-agent-vs-bolna.md)
- [AssemblyAI Voice Agent API vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Bland AI API + MCP vs Bolna API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bland-ai-vs-bolna.md)
- [Bland AI API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bland-ai-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Deepgram Voice Agent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-deepgram-voice-agent.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs ElevenLabs Agents API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-elevenlabs-agents.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Gemini Live API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-gemini-live.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs GPT-Live](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-gpt-live.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-hume-evi.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs OpenAI Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-openai-realtime.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-pipecat.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs PlaceCall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-placecall.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Retell AI API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-retell-ai.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Synthflow API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-synthflow.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Ultravox Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-ultravox.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Vapi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-vapi.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Vocily AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-vocily.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Vogent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-vogent.md)
- [Deepgram Voice Agent API vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [ElevenLabs Agents API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-agents-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Gemini Live API vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-live-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs OpenAI Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-openai-realtime.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-pipecat.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs PlaceCall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-placecall.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Retell AI API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-retell-ai.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Synthflow API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-synthflow.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Ultravox Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-ultravox.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vapi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vapi.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vocily AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vocily.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vogent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vogent.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs CueLight](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-cuelight.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Pipecat PhoneLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-pipecat-phonellm.md)
- [CueLight vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cuelight-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Pipecat PhoneLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-pipecat-phonellm.md)
- [GPT-Live vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt-live-vs-livekit-agents.md)

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