# ElevenLabs Music API vs Google Lyria

> ElevenLabs Music API has a score of 67 (B) against Google Lyria's 49 (D). Both do audio music. The largest gap is reliability, 30 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-04

ElevenLabs Music API has a score of 67 (B) against Google Lyria's 49 (D). Both do audio music. The largest gap is reliability, 30 points.

- ElevenLabs Music API: grade B, 67/100, rank #150 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elevenlabs-music.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/elevenlabs-music.json
- Google Lyria: grade D, 49/100, rank #371 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-lyria.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-lyria.json

## Which one, for what

Pick ElevenLabs Music API for reliability (+30), schema & documentation (+30), agent ergonomics (+25), security & auth (+17).

Pick Google Lyria for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ElevenLabs Music API | Google Lyria | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 33 | ElevenLabs Music API +30 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 56 | ElevenLabs Music API +30 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 40 | ElevenLabs Music API +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 60 | ElevenLabs Music API +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 80 | even |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 78 | ElevenLabs Music API +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **49 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ElevenLabs Music API | Google Lyria |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | ElevenLabs | Google |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1` | `https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-22 |
| Popularity | 3.1k stars, 1.1M npm/wk | 4k stars |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**ElevenLabs Music API.** Vocals and lyrics in several languages, or forced instrumental, with length set from 3 to 600 seconds. Music API is disabled on the Free plan and pay-as-you-go needs a card.

**Google Lyria.** $0.08 a full song on `lyria-3.5` and $0.04 a 30-second clip, flat. No free tier for Lyria, so billing is needed before the first call.

## Before you call either

### ElevenLabs Music API

1. Strip artist and song names from user prompts before calling, or the request breaks the Music Terms
2. Pin `model_id`. The API default is still `music_v1`
3. Set `music_length_ms` and `force_instrumental: true` for background beds. Billing is by minute of audio
4. On 429, retry `system_busy` with exponential backoff, but treat `too_many_concurrent_requests` as a plan limit and queue
5. Don't plan on the MCP server for music. Its documented tools cover agents and speech

### Google Lyria

1. Draft on `lyria-3-clip-preview` at $0.04 before paying for a full song
2. Put the target length and structure in the prompt, e.g. "[0:00 - 0:10] Intro" or "a 2-minute song"
3. Decode `output_audio.data` from base64 straight to a file. Don't let it into the context
4. Don't name artists or paste song lyrics. The safety filter blocks the request
5. Back off exponentially on 429 `RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED`. Limits are per project and tier

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