# LiveKit Agents vs Pipecat

> LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) to Pipecat's 68.9 (B) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-17

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Pipecat's 68.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Pipecat leads on reliability and schema & documentation. Both do voice agents.

- LiveKit Agents: grade BB, 72.5/100, rank #104 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/livekit-agents.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-agents.json
- Pipecat: grade B, 68.9/100, rank #215 of 1133. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pipecat.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pipecat.json
- Best conversational voice-agent APIs: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/voice-agents/index.md
- All 184 voice agents comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/voice-agents/index.md

## Which one, for what

### LiveKit Agents (BB)

Good 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:
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 72
- Security & auth, 62 against 57

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- No incidents deducted, where Pipecat loses 4 points for them

Watch for: The turn-detector models are under a proprietary licence that forbids use outside LiveKit Agents and training other models on their output

### Pipecat (B)

Good for: Python teams that want to own a voice agent's pipeline, pick each speech and model provider, and host it themselves or on Pipecat Cloud.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 72 against 67
- Schema & documentation, 90 against 81

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: No tool-approval or confirmation step, and no prompt-injection guidance, for tools that act on a caller's speech


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | LiveKit Agents | Pipecat | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 72 | Pipecat +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 90 | Pipecat +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 80 | 72 | LiveKit Agents +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 62 | 57 | LiveKit Agents +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 87 | Pipecat +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 81 | LiveKit Agents +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **72.5 · BB** | **68.9 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | LiveKit Agents | Pipecat |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | Agent framework |
| Vendor | LiveKit Incorporated | Daily |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports |  |  |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Price for voice agents | $0.01 per minute of call | $0.01 per minute of call |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | 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 | BSD-2-Clause for the framework. Pipecat Cloud is a hosted service under Daily's terms of service |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-09-26 |
| Terms last updated | no date given |  |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given |  |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 15k stars, 820k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk | 16k stars, 98k npm/wk, 302k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3/5 (4) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Pipecat.** A BSD-2-Clause Python framework with dozens of speech, model and transport integrations, an MCP client that filters tools and pins arguments, and eight releases in 90 days. It has no tool-approval step, and 1.12.0 can send OPENAI_API_KEY to other OpenAI-compatible providers when no key is passed, a flaw fixed on main but not yet released.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Pipecat

1. Pass `api_key` explicitly to every OpenAI-compatible service such as Groq, Cerebras or OpenRouter. On 1.12.0 a missing key sends `OPENAI_API_KEY` to that provider
2. Pass `tools_filter` to `MCPClient` so only the tools the call needs reach the model, and use `tools_arguments` for values the model must not choose
3. Gate tools that book, pay or send in your own handler. Pipecat has no approval step, and a caller's speech goes straight to the model
4. Keep the development runner on localhost. Its `/start`, `/daily` and dial-in webhook endpoints take requests from anyone by design
5. Pin a minor version and read the breaking-change flags in CHANGELOG.md before upgrading, since minor releases remove and rename APIs

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, LiveKit Agents or Pipecat?

LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Pipecat's 68.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Pipecat leads on reliability and schema & documentation.

### Which is cheaper for voice agents, LiveKit Agents or Pipecat?

They cost about the same, $0.01 per minute of call for LiveKit Agents and $0.01 per minute of call for Pipecat. These are the vendors' published prices for the job.

### Are LiveKit Agents and Pipecat open source?

Yes. 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). Pipecat is open source (BSD-2-Clause for the framework. Pipecat Cloud is a hosted service under Daily's terms of service).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-pipecat.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-pipecat.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "livekit-agents", "b": "pipecat"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare livekit-agents pipecat`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/livekit-agents.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/pipecat.json

## Other comparisons with LiveKit Agents or Pipecat

- [AssemblyAI Voice Agent API vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [AssemblyAI Voice Agent API vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/assemblyai-voice-agent-vs-pipecat.md)
- [Bland AI API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bland-ai-vs-livekit-agents.md)
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- [Bolna API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Bolna API + MCP vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bolna-vs-pipecat.md)
- [Deepgram Voice Agent API vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Deepgram Voice Agent API vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/deepgram-voice-agent-vs-pipecat.md)
- [ElevenLabs Agents API + MCP vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/elevenlabs-agents-vs-livekit-agents.md)
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- [Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [Hume EVI (Empathic Voice Interface) vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hume-evi-vs-pipecat.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs OpenAI Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-openai-realtime.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs PlaceCall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-placecall.md)
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- [LiveKit Agents vs Ultravox Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-ultravox.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vapi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vapi.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vocily AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vocily.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Vogent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-vogent.md)
- [OpenAI Realtime API vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/openai-realtime-vs-pipecat.md)
- [Pipecat vs PlaceCall](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-placecall.md)
- [Pipecat vs Retell AI API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-retell-ai.md)
- [Pipecat vs Synthflow API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-synthflow.md)
- [Pipecat vs Ultravox Realtime API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-ultravox.md)
- [Pipecat vs Vapi API + MCP](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-vapi.md)
- [Pipecat vs Vocily AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-vocily.md)
- [Pipecat vs Vogent API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-vogent.md)
- [CueLight vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cuelight-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [CueLight vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cuelight-vs-pipecat.md)
- [LiveKit Agents vs Pipecat PhoneLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-pipecat-phonellm.md)
- [Pipecat vs Pipecat PhoneLLM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-pipecat-phonellm.md)
- [GPT-Live vs LiveKit Agents](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt-live-vs-livekit-agents.md)
- [GPT-Live vs Pipecat](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt-live-vs-pipecat.md)

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