Pipecat vs Ultravox (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Pipecat grades higher than Ultravox: 2.2 against 1.6 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Pipecat grades higher on the free plan and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money, features and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Pipecat
Open source framework for building voice and multimodal AI agents
Free plan
Ultravox
Speech-native voice AI platform and API for building voice agents
Free trial · from $100/mo
Which one is for you
Pick Pipecat if
- Fits if you write Python and want to own the voice agent pipeline
- Works for teams that want any model and any transport without lock-in
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want no-code: it is a developer framework
- Watch out: providers for speech, language and voice are billed separately
- Watch out: the site says the Pipecat team is joining Deepgram, though it stays open source
- Pricey if you use phone calls on Cloud: dial-in or out is $0.018 a minute on top
Pick Ultravox if
- Fits if you are a developer who wants one model that listens and speaks
- Makes sense if you will pay by the minute and build your own call flow
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a no-code builder: it is APIs and SDKs
- Watch out: the site says Ultravox has been acquired by Inworld, and plans and pricing may change
- Tight if you scale on Pay as You Go: it is capped at 5 concurrent calls
- Watch out: the pricing page marks prices as an annual rate and shows no monthly-billed price
How we grade them
| 2.2GPAPipecatFair | 1.6GPAUltravoxWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CFree to download, but it only runs if you host it yourself on a server, which is a C. Pipecat Cloud costs $0.01 to $0.03 an active minute. | CPay as You Go is $0.05 a minute and Pro is $100 a month billed yearly, between the category's $50 dearer-quarter and $150 dearest-tenth lines. |
| Free plan and trial | BOpen source with no limits of its own. You still pay the model and phone providers you plug in, and hosting. | DThe first 30 minutes of calls are free. That is a short taste, not a plan. |
| Features | CPipelines of frames, any model and transport, flows, a cloud host and a CLI. It does the orchestration job but needs speech, language and voice services from elsewhere to be useful. | CA speech-native model, APIs and SDKs, telephony, an outbound scheduler and retrieval corpora. It is a building block, so you build the product around it. |
| Ease of use | DYou write Python and run it yourself. No store rating exists. | DYou need to write code against REST APIs and SDKs, and no store rating exists. |
| Platforms and integrations | BRuns wherever Python runs, with seven integrations listed. No ready-made apps. | CWeb, with APIs and SDKs. No integrations are listed. |
| Best for | developers building voice agents in Python | developers building voice agents on one speech model |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Pipecat and Ultravox. How we grade
Where they differ
- Pipecat is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Ultravox also covers voice cloning.
In commonWebPublic APIAI agents
At a glance
| Pipecat | Ultravox | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | Not published | $100 per month, billed yearly |
| Free plan | Pipecat is open source and runs wherever Python runs; hosting on your own servers costs nothing beyond what you pay providers. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | First 30 minutes of calls free, then $0.05 per minute on Pay as You Go |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Daily | Fixie.ai |
| Price read from | daily.co | ultravox.ai |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Pipecat
- Pipecat Cloud is billed per active minute: agent-1x costs $0.01 a minute, agent-2x $0.02 and agent-3x $0.03.
- Daily WebRTC voice transport is free for 1:1 sessions on Pipecat Cloud; PSTN dial-in or out is $0.018 a minute.
- The site says the Pipecat team is joining Deepgram, and that Pipecat stays open source and vendor neutral.
- It is a developer framework, not a no-code builder.
Ultravox
- The site announces that Ultravox has been acquired by Inworld; future plans and pricing may change.
- The pricing page marks prices as an annual rate; a monthly-billed price is not shown.
- Pay as You Go is capped at 5 concurrent calls.
- Threads pricing is $2.00 per 1M uncached input tokens and $15.00 per 1M output tokens.
Key features
Pipecat
- Pipeline of frames
- Frames stream through the pipeline as they are produced, so the agent can start responding while the user is still talking.
- Any model, any transport
- Swap services from 200+ providers and connect over WebRTC, SIP or PSTN.
- Pipecat Flows
- Structured conversation paths for cases where a dialog must follow a defined route.
- Pipecat Cloud
- Managed hosting for agents, with unlimited concurrency and per-minute billing.
- CLI and observability
- A pipecat init command scaffolds a project; metrics, traces and OpenTelemetry are supported.
Ultravox
- Speech-native model
- Processes audio directly so tone and cadence are not lost in transcription, and the vendor runs its own inference stack.
- REST APIs and SDKs
- Developer APIs plus kits for web and mobile platforms.
- Telephony
- Built-in telephony support, with SIP calls priced from about half a cent per minute.
- Outbound call scheduler
- Schedules outbound calls; available on Pro and Enterprise.
- RAG corpora
- Attach knowledge corpora to an agent: 2 on Pay as You Go and 20 on Pro.
Plans
Pipecat
Open source$0
Self-host the framework on your own infrastructure; you pay your model and transport providers.
Ultravox
Pay as You Go$0
per month, plus $0.05 per minute
30 free minutes, then 5 cents a minute; up to 5 concurrent calls and 2 RAG corpora.
Pro$100
per month, billed yearly
No hard cap on concurrency, outbound call scheduler, 5 custom voices and 20 RAG corpora.
EnterpriseCustom
Priority SLA, org support and customizable limits.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Pipecat or Ultravox?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Pipecat publishes no starting price, and Ultravox starts at $100 per month, billed yearly.
Which has a free plan, Pipecat or Ultravox?
As of Nov 13, 2026, only Pipecat has a free plan. Ultravox does not, though it has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.