# Gemini Live API vs OpenAI Realtime API (slim)

> OpenAI Realtime scores 63.3 (B) to Gemini Live's 57.1 (C) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-live-vs-openai-realtime.md (~2,750 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-live-vs-openai-realtime.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gemini-live-vs-openai-realtime
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

OpenAI Realtime API scores 63.3 (B) on agent readiness against Gemini Live API's 57.1 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Gemini Live API leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do voice agents.

- Gemini Live API: C 57.1, rank #622 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gemini-live.min.md
- OpenAI Realtime API: B 63.3, rank #400 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-realtime.min.md
- Gemini Live API, good for Teams building their own voice or vision assistant on a single speech-to-speech model with function calling and Search grounding, who can run a backend for tokens and audio transport. Ahead on Payments & pricing, 40 against 20; Maintenance & community, 83 against 52.
- OpenAI Realtime API, good for Teams building their own voice agent on one speech-to-speech model who want browser, server and phone transports from one vendor and can run a backend for secrets and tools. Ahead on Reliability, 67 against 41; Schema & documentation, 84 against 66; Agent ergonomics, 76 against 69; Security & auth, 61 against 48.

| Category | Gemini Live API | OpenAI Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 41 | 67 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 66 | 84 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 69 | 76 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 48 | 61 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 52 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 72 | 71 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Gemini Live API | OpenAI Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Google | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta` | `https://api.openai.com/v1/realtime` |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the Gemini API Additional Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0 | Proprietary service. The service terms on openai.com were not read. The Agents SDK for TypeScript and the OpenAPI description are MIT |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-07-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-04-28 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 29.5M npm/wk, 34.1M PyPI/wk | none |