LiveKit Agents
https://docs.livekit.io/agents/
LiveKit Agents — agent framework built on LiveKit's open-source WebRTC media server. LiveKit raised $45M Series B Sep-2024 ($300M val). Powers OpenAI Realtime API's WebRTC transport (LiveKit is the substrate OpenAI chose). Agents framework formally launched 2024.
Active · Verified 2026-10-26 · fresh as of 2026-10-26 · 51 cited facts, 2 with a third-party source · 1 recorded change · Suggest a correction
At a glance
- Type
- Voice-agent framework on LiveKit WebRTC platform vendor fix
- Tier
- T1
- Section
- Voice agent platforms
- Created
- 2024 (Agents repo open-sourced) repo fix
- Latest release
- v1.7.1 (2026-08-27) — livekit-agents (Python) repo fix
- GitHub
- livekit/agents — ~13k stars, last commit 2026-08+ repo fix
- Pricing
- OSS free; LiveKit Cloud tiered ($50/mo+ + usage) vendor fix
- Funding
- $45M Series B Sep-2024 (Altimeter; $300M val) third-party fix
- Freshness
- 2026-10-26 fix
- Layer
- agent-infra repo fix
- SDK languages
- python, typescript vendor fix
- Protocols
- mcp-client, opentelemetry repo fix
- Compliance
- ccpa, gdpr, hipaa, soc2-type2 vendor fix
- Developer activity
- OpenRank 53.84 (12-mo avg 56.3) · 230 participants — 2026-09 third-party fix
When to use
Optimised for: Real-time voice + video agents over WebRTC at scale
Anti-fit: WebRTC-centric; if you want telephony-first, Vapi/Retell often easier
Pros & cons
Pros
Chosen by OpenAI for Realtime WebRTC backbone; OSS Apache 2.0; SOC 2 + HIPAA; scales to billions of minutes.
Cons
WebRTC-first (telephony via Twilio adapter); framework not turnkey SaaS for non-engineers.
Claims & capabilities
LiveKit raised $45M Series B (Sep-2024, Altimeter); selected by OpenAI as WebRTC backbone for Realtime
Technical surface
- API surface
- Python + Node SDKs; WebRTC transport; tools / function-calling
- Backend storage
- Caller-managed; LiveKit handles WebRTC session state
- Deployment
- Both (self-hosted + managed cloud) — OSS framework self-host + LiveKit Cloud
- Embedding model
- not applicable — not a memory product
- Multi-tenancy
- Multi-tenant Cloud; per-room namespacing
- MCP
- yes — native MCP support (agents can use MCP server tools)
- A2A
- searched not found
- OpenTelemetry
- OpenTelemetry export in 2025 release
Compare LiveKit Agents with…
Alternatives to LiveKit Agents → live options ranked by shared design, licence, hosting and MCP support
Similar systems
Other voice agent platforms in the catalog, ranked by inbound references.
- Cartesia Sonic T1
Cartesia's Sonic TTS — state-space-model-based voice generation, lowest published TTS latency (~40ms). Cartesia raised $64M Series A Q1 2025 (Index + Lightspeed); founded by Mamba authors. Agent platform layer ('Cartesia Line') wraps Sonic with telephony + LLM.
- ElevenLabs Conversational AI (now ElevenAgents) T1
ElevenLabs launched Conversational AI Nov-2024 — STT + LLM + their own market-leading TTS in one pipeline. Combines vendor's voice cloning + multilingual TTS strengths with hosted call orchestration. ElevenLabs raised $180M Series C Jan-2025 at $3.3B val. As of 2026-10 ElevenLabs markets the platform as ElevenAgents.
- OpenAI Realtime API T1
OpenAI's Realtime API for native speech-to-speech multimodal interaction with GPT-4o — launched Oct 2024 (DevDay). Skips the STT → LLM → TTS pipeline by passing speech directly to GPT-4o. The platform substrate that Vapi/Retell/Bland integrate as one of their LLM choices.
- Pipecat (Daily) T1
Open-source Python framework for real-time voice + multimodal AI agents, maintained by Daily.co. Pipeline-style architecture (STT → context → LLM → TTS) wired over WebRTC. The OSS substrate that many of the voice platforms build on or compose with.
- Hume EVI T1
Hume's Empathic Voice Interface (EVI) — voice agent platform with vocal-affect understanding, using Hume's proprietary speech-prosody models. Hume will shut down the EVI and TTS APIs on 2026-11-13 (announced in its docs). Hume raised $50M Series B Mar-2024 (EQT).
- Speechmatics Flow T2
Speechmatics (UK; STT leader) launched Flow Q4 2024 — conversational voice-agent platform composed on Speechmatics STT + caller LLM. Speechmatics raised $62M Series B (2022); enterprise + media customers. UK / EU data-residency lead. As of 2026-10 the Flow pages and docs redirect to Agent STT, a speech-to-text API for voice agents (Linden model, from $0.30/hour) used via LiveKit, Pipecat or the API; Flow itself is no longer listed.
Sources (50 cited facts, 2 third-party)
Each fact links to the page it came from; the badge says who published it (how to read sources).
- What it is Voice-agent framework on LiveKit WebRTC platform vendor
- What it does & what's distinct LiveKit Agents — agent framework built on LiveKit's open-source WebRTC media server. Liv… vendor
- Claims / benefits LiveKit raised $45M Series B (Sep-2024, Altimeter); selected by OpenAI as WebRTC backbon… vendor
- Modalities voice + video + text (WebRTC) vendor
- Created 2024 (Agents repo open-sourced) repo
- Latest release v1.7.1 (2026-08-27) — livekit-agents (Python) repo
- License Apache-2.0 (framework); turn-detector models under LiveKit Model License repo
- GitHub livekit/agents — ~13k stars, last commit 2026-08+ repo
- Mindshare Major mindshare since OpenAI Realtime partnership; default WebRTC stack for many voice a… vendor
- Funding $45M Series B Sep-2024 (Altimeter; $300M val) third-party
- Customers / scale OpenAI Realtime; Character AI (parent platform); broad media + agent customers vendor
- Pricing OSS free; LiveKit Cloud tiered ($50/mo+ + usage) vendor
- Compliance SOC 2 Type II; HIPAA available vendor
- Data handling Cloud data residency US/EU; self-host = your infra vendor
- Deployment Both (self-hosted + managed cloud) — OSS framework self-host + LiveKit Cloud repo
- HQ US (San Francisco) vendor
- Founders / pedigree Russ d'Sa + David Zhao (co-founders) vendor
- Memory volume / scale Vendor: billions of minutes / year via OpenAI Realtime adjacency vendor
- Performance Sub-1s turn latency typical; OpenAI Realtime via LiveKit reports ~320ms vendor
- Code/weights release OSS Apache 2.0 repo
- API surface Python + Node SDKs; WebRTC transport; tools / function-calling vendor
- Latency p50/p99 Sub-1s; OpenAI Realtime path ~320ms vendor
- Throughput Horizontally scalable SFU; OpenAI prod-scale validation vendor
- Backend storage Caller-managed; LiveKit handles WebRTC session state vendor
- Multi-tenancy Multi-tenant Cloud; per-room namespacing vendor
- Encryption TLS / DTLS-SRTP; E2EE available vendor
- SSO / RBAC SAML/SSO on Cloud Enterprise vendor
- Versioning Agents = code (caller repo versioning) vendor
- Namespace primitives per-room vendor
- MCP support yes — native MCP support (agents can use MCP server tools) repo
- OTel OpenTelemetry export in 2025 release vendor
- Webhooks / events Room + agent-event webhooks vendor
- Import / export Agents = code (portable) vendor
- Validated verticals OpenAI; Character AI; broad voice/video agent customers vendor
- Time to running <1hr (LiveKit Cloud + first agent) vendor
- Anti-fit WebRTC-centric; if you want telephony-first, Vapi/Retell often easier vendor
- Optimised for Real-time voice + video agents over WebRTC at scale vendor
- Adjacent infrastructure OpenAI Realtime; Anthropic; Deepgram / Cartesia / Eleven STT-TTS; Twilio (for PSTN) vendor
- Pros Chosen by OpenAI for Realtime WebRTC backbone; OSS Apache 2.0; SOC 2 + HIPAA; scales to … vendor
- Cons WebRTC-first (telephony via Twilio adapter); framework not turnkey SaaS for non-engineers. vendor
- Project & sources livekit.io; docs.livekit.io/agents; github.com/livekit/agents vendor
- commit-trajectory [{"ym":"2025-10","cum":2393},{"ym":"2025-11","cum":2521},{"ym":"2025-12","cum":2662},{"y… repo
- architecture-deployment-locus hybrid vendor
- licensing-bucket open-core vendor
- positioning-platform-vs-product platform vendor
- taxonomy-three-layer-rollup agent-infra repo
- developer-activity-opendigger {"activity":623.31,"as_of":"2026-09","openrank_12mo":56.3,"openrank_current":53.84,"part… third-party
- compliance-certifications ccpa,gdpr,hipaa,soc2-type2 vendor
- sdk-languages python,typescript vendor
- protocol-support mcp-client,opentelemetry repo
What changed
Changes to this record's lifecycle, licence, release, pricing and hosting facts, from the catalog's git history. Subscribe (Atom)
- 2026-10-26
- License “Apache 2.0” → “Apache-2.0 (framework); turn-detector models under LiveKit Model License” source
- Latest release “v0.x ongoing; LiveKit Agents Cloud announced 2025” → “v1.7.1 (2026-08-27) — livekit-agents (Python)” source
- Deployment “Self-host + LiveKit Cloud” → “Both (self-hosted + managed cloud) — OSS framework self-host + LiveKit Cloud” source
- MCP support “Composes with MCP tools” → “yes — native MCP support (agents can use MCP server tools)” source
Related systems
References (20)
- Amazon Nova family integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Amazon Nova family model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Anthropic Claude (foundation models) integrates with · depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: OpenAI Realtime; Anthropic; Deepgram / Cartesia / Eleven STT-TTS; Twilio (for PSTN)
- Baseten integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Baseten model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Bland AI integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Bland AI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Cartesia Sonic integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Cartesia Sonic model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- DeepSeek R1 / V3 family integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a DeepSeek R1 / V3 family model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- ElevenLabs Conversational AI (now ElevenAgents) integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a ElevenLabs Conversational AI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Fireworks AI integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Fireworks AI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Google Gemini 3 family integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Google Gemini 3 family model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Hume EVI integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Hume EVI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Inworld AI integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Inworld AI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- LangChain (framework) integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a LangChain (framework) model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Letta / MemGPT integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Letta / MemGPT model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Mistral Large 2 / Mixtral family integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Mistral Large 2 / Mixtral family model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenAI GPT family (GPT-5 / GPT-4o / o3 / o4) integrates with · depends on at runtime — adjacent-infrastructure cell: OpenAI Realtime; Anthropic; Deepgram / Cartesia / Eleven STT-TTS; Twilio (for PSTN)
- OpenAI Realtime API integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a OpenAI Realtime API model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenRouter integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a OpenRouter model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Speechmatics Flow integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Speechmatics Flow model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Together AI integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a Together AI model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- xAI Grok 4 integrates with — LiveKit Agents docs have a xAI Grok 4 model plugin page. (verified 2026-10-29)
Referenced by (11)
- Braintrust integrates with — Braintrust docs have a LiveKit Agents integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Comet ML integrates with — Comet's Opik docs have a LiveKit Agents integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) integrates with — ADK integrations catalog has a "LiveKit runner for ADK" page (Put a live voice agent in a WebRTC room or on a phone call). (verified 2026-10-29)
- Langfuse integrates with — Langfuse's integrations directory has a LiveKit Agents integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- LangSmith integrates with — LangSmith docs have a tracing integration page for LiveKit Agents. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Mastra integrates with — Mastra repo ships the @mastra/livekit realtime voice integration. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Mem0 integrates with — Mem0 docs have a Livekit integration page (Build memory-enabled voice assistants with LiveKit, Deepgram, OpenAI, and Mem0 for context-aware conversations). (verified 2026-10-29)
- OpenRouter integrates with — OpenRouter docs have a community guide on using OpenRouter with LiveKit Agents. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Portkey AI integrates with — Portkey docs have a LiveKit agent framework integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- TrueFoundry AI Gateway integrates with — TrueFoundry AI Gateway ecosystem lists a LiveKit integration page. (verified 2026-10-29)
- Zep & Graphiti integrates with — Zep docs have a LiveKit Agents integration page (zep-livekit package). (verified 2026-10-29)