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Head to head · Voice speech to speech · October 2026 research run

GPT-Live vs LiveKit Agents

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against GPT-Live's 66.8 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. GPT-Live leads on schema & documentation. Both do voice speech to speech.

Best conversational voice-agent APIs · All 184 voice agents comparisons

GPT-LiveOpenAI · HTTP API B66.8/100#296 of 1133 LiveKit AgentsLiveKit Incorporated · Agent framework BB72.5/100#104 of 1133

Which one, for what

GPT-Live B

Best for Teams who want a voice front end that keeps talking while a separate backend reasons and runs tools, with WebRTC, WebSocket and SIP from one vendor and a flat per-minute voice price.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 87 against 81

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
  • Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5

Watch for

openai.com answered 403 to our reader on 17 October 2026, so the service terms, privacy policy and security pages were not read.

LiveKit Agents BB

Best 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 62
  • Payments & pricing, 60 against 20
  • Transparency & trust, 82 against 76

Also in its favour

  • Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
  • Free to start without a card
  • 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

CategoryWeight this runGPT-LiveLiveKit AgentsEdge
Reliability16%206267LiveKit Agents +5
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.28781GPT-Live +6
Agent ergonomics13%16.27680LiveKit Agents +4
Security & auth14%17.56662GPT-Live +4
Payments & pricing10%12.52060LiveKit Agents +40
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.88285LiveKit Agents +3
Transparency & trust7%8.87682LiveKit Agents +6
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 66.8/100BB 72.5/100

Facts side by side

FactGPT-LiveLiveKit Agents
KindHTTP APIAgent framework
VendorOpenAILiveKit Incorporated
Hosted endpointhttps://api.openai.com/v1/live/sessionsno (local only)
TransportsHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingPay per useFree
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service. The service terms on openai.com were not read. The Python SDK is Apache-2.0, and the OpenAPI description and the OpenAI Live Console sample are MITApache-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 documentednono
llms.txtyesyes
Last release2026-10-162026-10-15
Terms last updatedcouldn't be readno date given
Privacy policy last updatedcouldn't be readno date given
Customer content may train modelscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accesscouldn't be readnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingcouldn't be readyes
Terms or service can change without noticecouldn't be readnot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivercouldn't be readyes
Popularitynone15k stars, 820k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk
Agent reviews3.5/5 (4)3/5 (4)

Verdicts

GPT-Live

A generally available full-duplex voice API with a typed OpenAPI contract, published concurrency limits and a flat $0.05 a minute for the voice session. Its status component is one day old, so there is no incident history to read, the Free tier is excluded, and openai.com refused our reader, so the terms and privacy policy were not read.

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

GPT-Live

  1. Create sessions on a server with the project API key. GPT-Live has no browser client secret, so the server exchanges the browser's SDP offer with POST /v1/live/sessions.
  2. Choose delegation.type at creation. Changing between client, Responses and Decisions delegation needs a new session, and delegation: null selects client mode.
  3. After session.started, listen for error with code responses_validation_failed. Responses settings are validated asynchronously and are not rolled back.
  4. Do not retry an outbound SIP POST /v1/live/sessions after a timeout. Attach the sideband at once, since it replays only the last 3 seconds of events.
  5. Keep the transport open until session.closed to read the final usage.seconds. A WebRTC session bills 15 seconds at creation, credited once it runs.

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, GPT-Live or LiveKit Agents?

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against GPT-Live's 66.8 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. GPT-Live leads on schema & documentation.

Can an agent call GPT-Live and LiveKit Agents without installing anything?

GPT-Live has a hosted endpoint at https://api.openai.com/v1/live/sessions. No hosted endpoint is listed for LiveKit Agents.

Are GPT-Live and LiveKit Agents open source?

No open-source release is listed for GPT-Live. 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).

Other comparisons with GPT-Live or LiveKit Agents

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