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

> OpenAI Realtime scores 63.3 (B) to Hume EVI's 56.7 (C) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-openai-realtime.md (~2,750 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-openai-realtime.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-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 Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface)'s 56.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do voice agents.

- Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface): C 56.7, rank #626 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hume-evi.min.md
- OpenAI Realtime API: B 63.3, rank #400 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/openai-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 84; Payments & pricing, 37 against 20; Maintenance & community, 65 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 55; Agent ergonomics, 76 against 66; Security & auth, 61 against 27; Transparency & trust, 71 against 61.

| Category | Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) | OpenAI Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 55 | 67 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 90 | 84 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 66 | 76 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 27 | 61 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 37 | 20 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 65 | 52 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 61 | 71 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) | OpenAI Realtime API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Hume AI | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.hume.ai/v0/evi` | `https://api.openai.com/v1/realtime` |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | Proprietary service. The service terms on openai.com were not read. The Agents SDK for TypeScript and the OpenAPI description are MIT |
| Last release | 2026-08-18 | 2026-07-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-05 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-02-25 | 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 | yes | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 180 stars, 79k npm/wk, 24k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |