# Deepgram Voice Agent API vs LiveKit Agents

> LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) to Deepgram Voice Agent's 68.1 (B) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Deepgram Voice Agent API's 68.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Deepgram Voice Agent API leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do voice agents.

- Deepgram Voice Agent API: grade B, 68.1/100, rank #250 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/deepgram-voice-agent.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepgram-voice-agent.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

### Deepgram Voice Agent API (B)

Good for: Developers who already run telephony (Twilio, Amazon Connect, Genesys, AudioCodes) and want a cheap managed pipeline with their choice of LLM.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 81
- Security & auth, 71 against 62

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: No phone numbers or SIP, so you bridge Twilio or another carrier yourself

### 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 55
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 67
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 40
- Transparency & trust, 82 against 77

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- Open source

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 | Deepgram Voice Agent API | LiveKit Agents | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 55 | 67 | LiveKit Agents +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 81 | Deepgram Voice Agent API +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 67 | 80 | LiveKit Agents +13 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 71 | 62 | Deepgram Voice Agent API +9 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 60 | LiveKit Agents +20 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 85 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 82 | LiveKit Agents +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **68.1 · B** | **72.5 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Deepgram Voice Agent API | LiveKit Agents |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Agent framework |
| Vendor | Deepgram | LiveKit Incorporated |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://agent.deepgram.com/v1/agent` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio, SSE (legacy) |  |
| 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 (SDKs) | 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 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-30 | 2026-10-15 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-06 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2021-10-26 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | 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 | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 468 stars, 1.1M npm/wk, 805k PyPI/wk | 15k stars, 820k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (2) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**Deepgram Voice Agent API.** $0.075 a minute all in on Standard, $0.050 with your own LLM and TTS, $200 of credit with no card. No phone numbers or SIP, so you bridge Twilio or another carrier yourself.

**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

### Deepgram Voice Agent API

1. Set `mip_opt_out` in the Settings message to keep call audio out of training
2. Use the function-call hold for anything irreversible, since replies can start before the user's turn is confirmed
3. Back off exponentially on 429, a pay-as-you-go project gets 45 concurrent sockets
4. Pin the LLM version, an unpinned Gemini route failed for 1.5 hours on 21 July 2026
5. Mint browser tokens with `ttl_seconds`, not `ttl`, or they expire after 30 seconds

### 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, Deepgram Voice Agent API or LiveKit Agents?

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Deepgram Voice Agent API's 68.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Deepgram Voice Agent API leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Deepgram Voice Agent API and LiveKit Agents without installing anything?

Deepgram Voice Agent API has a hosted endpoint at https://agent.deepgram.com/v1/agent. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiveKit Agents.

### Are Deepgram Voice Agent API and LiveKit Agents open source?

No open-source release is listed for Deepgram Voice Agent API. 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/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "deepgram-voice-agent", "b": "livekit-agents"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare deepgram-voice-agent livekit-agents`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/deepgram-voice-agent.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-agents.json

## Other comparisons with Deepgram Voice Agent API or LiveKit Agents

- [AssemblyAI Voice Agent API vs Deepgram Voice Agent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-voice-agent-vs-deepgram-voice-agent.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 Deepgram Voice Agent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bland-ai-vs-deepgram-voice-agent.md)
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- [Deepgram Voice Agent API vs Vogent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-vogent.md)
- [ElevenLabs Agents API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-agents-vs-livekit-agents.md)
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