# Pipecat vs Retell AI API + MCP (slim)

> Retell AI and Pipecat score within a point of each other for voice agents, 69.1 and 68.9 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-retell-ai.md (~2,850 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-vs-retell-ai.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pipecat-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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Retell AI API + MCP and Pipecat score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 69.1 (B) and 68.9 (B). Pipecat leads on reliability, agent ergonomics, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do voice agents.

- Pipecat: B 68.9, rank #215 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pipecat.min.md
- Retell AI API + MCP: B 69.1, rank #212 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/retell-ai.min.md
- Pipecat, 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 60; Agent ergonomics, 72 against 60; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40; Transparency & trust, 81 against 76. Also No key needed to call it; 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 Security & auth, 76 against 57. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 3.5 against 3.0 out of 5; No incidents deducted, where Pipecat loses 4 points for them.

| Category | Pipecat | Retell AI API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 72 | 60 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 90 | 92 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 72 | 60 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 57 | 76 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 87 | 85 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 81 | 76 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Pipecat | Retell AI API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Agent framework | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Daily | Retell AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.retellai.com` |
| Transports |  | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Price for voice agents | $0.01 per minute of call | not published |
| Licence | BSD-2-Clause for the framework. Pipecat Cloud is a hosted service under Daily's terms of service | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Last release | 2026-09-26 | 2026-09-14 |
| Terms last updated |  | 2026-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated |  | 2026-07-20 |
| Customer content may train models |  | yes, with an opt-out |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 16k stars, 98k npm/wk, 302k PyPI/wk | 62 stars, 243k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | 3.5/5 (2) |