# LiveKit Agents vs Retell AI API + MCP (slim)

> LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) to Retell AI's 69.1 (B) for voice agents. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-retell-ai.md (~3,050 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-retell-ai.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/livekit-agents-vs-retell-ai
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-17
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LiveKit Agents scores 72.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Retell AI API + MCP's 69.1 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Retell AI API + MCP leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do voice agents.

- LiveKit Agents: BB 72.5, rank #104 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/livekit-agents.min.md
- Retell AI API + MCP: B 69.1, rank #212 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/retell-ai.min.md
- LiveKit Agents, 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 Reliability, 67 against 60; Agent ergonomics, 80 against 60; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40; Transparency & trust, 82 against 76. Also Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better; Open source.
- Retell AI API + MCP, good for Teams that want a self-serve phone agent with clear per-component pricing, scoped keys and a choice of LLM and voice from Retell's menu. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 92 against 81; Security & auth, 76 against 62. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5.

| Category | LiveKit Agents | Retell AI API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 67 | 60 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 81 | 92 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 80 | 60 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 62 | 76 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 85 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 82 | 76 |

| Fact (where they differ) | LiveKit Agents | Retell AI API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | HTTP API |
| Vendor | LiveKit Incorporated | Retell AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.retellai.com` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Price for voice agents | $0.005 per minute of audio | not published |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Last release | 2026-10-15 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-07-20 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 15k stars, 820k npm/wk, 1.1M PyPI/wk | 62 stars, 243k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (2) |