# Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) vs Inworld Realtime API (slim)

> Inworld Realtime scores 60.1 (C) to Hume EVI's 54.1 (C) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-inworld-realtime.md (~5,200 tokens) · this version ~2,530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-inworld-realtime.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-inworld-realtime
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Inworld Realtime API scores 60.1 (C) on agent readiness against Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface)'s 54.1 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) leads on schema & documentation. Both do voice agents.

- Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface): C 54.1, rank #914 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hume-evi.min.md
- Inworld Realtime API: C 60.1, rank #668 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/inworld-realtime.min.md
- Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface), good for Consumer and coaching products where the caller's tone matters and English is enough on EVI 3. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 90 against 60. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install.
- Inworld Realtime API, good for Teams moving off OpenAI's Realtime API who want a choice of LLM and Inworld voices. Ahead on Reliability, 62 against 55; Security & auth, 58 against 27; Maintenance & community, 71 against 35.

| Category | Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) | Inworld Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 62 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 90 | 60 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 66 | 68 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 27 | 58 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 37 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 35 | 71 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 63 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) | Inworld Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Hume AI | Inworld AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.hume.ai/v0/evi` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | websocket, HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for voice agents | not published | $25 per 1M characters |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | 0 |
| Last release | 2026-08-18 | 2026-10-16 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-05 | 2025-06-11 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-02-25 | 2026-01-18 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 180 stars, 79k npm/wk, 24k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Inworld Realtime API +36: Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) 35 (Read as a closed service whose API access ends on 13 November 2026, so recency is the last API change. The SDK releases since June don't change EVI. TypeScript SDK 0.16.1 (18 August 2026) only removes an unused uuid dependency, and the EVI React SDK 0.3.0-beta.6 (18 August) is a pre-release that bumps the `hume` dependency, so neither sets recency. The last releases that changed EVI code are TypeScript SDK 0.16.0 and Python SDK v0.14.0 on 17 June 2026, regenerations that touched the EVI types (140 days, 10). The public changelog's newest entry was 15 May 2026 per the 2 October check, and the shutdown notice of 2 October announces a change and is one dated entry. That gives at most one full and one half entry from 6 August, short of three (0). A public changelog and no support test (5 of 15 for a closed service). Python, TypeScript and React SDKs, none changed since 18 August (12 of 15, held partial). MIT SDKs with ci.yml workflows in all three repositories (8 of 10). 10 + 0 + 5 + 12 + 8 = 35.); Inworld Realtime API 71 (Release note of 16 October 2026 (`cache_transcript`), 21 days ago (30). Three dated Realtime entries in the 90 days from 8 August, on 14 September, 23 September and 16 October (20). Discord and support@inworld.ai, with no evidence of answers read (8 of 15). Works with OpenAI's Realtime clients and the CLI is current at 1.5.0, but there is no Inworld Realtime SDK (8 of 15). CLI on npm under MIT, CI not read (5 of 10). Total 71.)
- Security & auth, Inworld Realtime API +31: Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) 27 (One API key and secret key pair per account, replaced as a whole with 'Regenerate keys', plus 30-minute access tokens from a client-credentials endpoint (15). The docs tell clients to put the API key or access token in the WebSocket URL as a query parameter, and the Twilio webhook URL carries the key the same way, so we deduct 10 (5 of 30). No scoped or read-only keys (3 of 20). EVI listens to callers and we found no prompt-injection guidance (5 of 15). Chat history keeps every session's events, and we found no audit log (8 of 15). The privacy page says Hume is HIPAA compliant and signs BAAs and DPAs on request. No security.txt, SOC 2 report or bug bounty found (6 of 20). Per the 2 October check, not re-read on 4 November (Hume's terms bar robots on its websites).); Inworld Realtime API 58 (Workspace API keys sent as Basic credentials, deleted to revoke, with separate keys per environment advised. The CLI mints read-only keys unless `--write` is given, but write toggles cover only the Voice and Router APIs, so no key is limited to one product. Browsers use short-lived tokens minted server side. Session IDs, not secrets, go in the URL (25 of 30). Tools run in the client, so the developer approves side effects, with no approval step in the API (10 of 20). The agent listens to callers and passes their speech to an LLM, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (5 of 15). Usage per key and a Performance page with errors and throttling (8 of 15). SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA claimed and a vulnerability report form, with no security.txt or bug bounty, per the 4 November reading (10 of 20). Total 58. Zero data retention covers session content from the Developer plan up, but not requests routed to third-party LLM providers.)
- Schema & documentation, Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) +30: Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) 90 (llms.txt links an AsyncAPI 2.6.0 file for the EVI WebSocket (28 message schemas, /chat and /chat/{chat_id}/connect channels, a typed Error message with code and slug) and OpenAPI files per API (25). llms.txt (10). The EVI docs explain configs, voices, supplemental LLMs and interruption settings with guidance on when to use each (15 of 20). Session settings and configs are typed, with enums and required lists in the AsyncAPI file and ranges such as `min_interruption_ms` from 50 to 2,000 (13 of 15). Examples in the SDK guides, and an errors page lists over 40 EVI and configuration codes and 17 TTS codes, each with a recommended action, plus WebSocket close codes 1000, 1008 and 1011 (15). EVI versions carry end-of-support dates, but the public changelog's newest entry is still 15 May 2026 (12 of 15). Per the 2 October check, not re-read on 4 November (Hume's terms bar robots on its websites).); Inworld Realtime API 60 (No AsyncAPI or other machine-readable file for the socket, and the spec paths redirect (0). llms.txt, Markdown twins and a docs MCP server (10). The overview, OpenAI migration guide, `providerData` reference and the billing page's account of how a session is counted say what to use when (16 of 20). The reference lists every client and server event with field types and required marks, as text rather than a schema (12 of 15). JavaScript and Python example projects and an error event with `type`, `code` and `param`, without a list of codes (9 of 15). Dated release notes with affected clients and required actions, but no API version beyond `/v1` (13 of 15). Total 60.)
- Reliability, Inworld Realtime API +7: Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) 55 (Hume's Terms of Service (last updated 5 October 2026) bar access to any portion of the Service, which includes its websites, through spiders, robots, crawlers or data mining tools, so no hume.ai page, status.hume.ai included, was re-read on 4 November. Readings are per the 1 and 2 October checks. A status page at status.hume.ai with component history back to September 2025 (20). Today's window runs from 6 August. Its readable part, 6 August to 2 October, holds one incident, TTS down for about 7 minutes on 19 September, which names TTS and not EVI. The EVI outages of 11 July (about 6.5 hours) and 24 July (about 2.6 hours) are now outside the window, and 3 October to 4 November is unread. A window that is partly unread holds at its recorded award and isn't credited for the unread stretch, as mailtrap's was after its majors aged out, so the line stays at 5 until the rest of the window can be read (5). Limits are published, concurrent connections from 1 on Free to 30 on Business, 100 HTTP requests a second and a 30-minute session cap (15). The error catalogue has a rate-limit code (E0811, 'Retry later') and a too-many-chats code (E0700) that states the active count and limit, but no HTTP 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance (5 of 15, held partial). No SLA found (0). EVI 3 is the generally available default per the 30 September check (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 5 + 0 + 10 = 55.); Inworld Realtime API 62 (Hosted reading of the checklist. status.inworld.ai is a public status page (20), with history we couldn't read, as on inworld-tts (5). Concurrent sessions are published per plan, 10 on On-Demand up to 1,000 on Growth (15). The rate limits page gives exponential backoff with jitter and Retry-After on longer windows, and sessions emit `rate_limits.updated`, with nothing on reconnecting a dropped session (12 of 15). An SLA appears only in the Enterprise column, with no terms (0). No preview or beta label on the Realtime API (10). 20 + 5 + 15 + 12 + 0 + 10 = 62.)