Bolna bolna-ai/bolna

Open-source orchestration framework for LLM voice agents that make and take phone calls over Twilio or Plivo.

Creator kit + Compare GitHub ↗ Install guide (official) ↗

Bolna at a glance

Checked 16 Oct 2026

Bolna is the open-source core of Bolna's hosted voice-agent platform: it chains ASR, LLM and TTS providers over websockets and places phone calls through Twilio or Plivo. MIT. The local setup is four Docker containers (telephony server, Bolna server, ngrok, Redis). Most listed ASR/TTS providers are paid APIs, though self-hosted ASR, vLLM and an OpenAI-compatible TTS endpoint are supported. The README says the project is looking for maintainers.

Cite this pageRepoQuarry. “Bolna.” Checked 16 Oct 2026. https://repoquarry.dev/projects/bolna

How much of Vapi does it replace?

2 of 2 jobs. Self-hosted phone agents; you still pay Twilio or Plivo and usually the ASR/LLM/TTS providers.

Voice agents Partial replacement

Phone calls (telephony) Partial replacement

How much of ElevenLabs does it replace?

1 of 4 jobs. Orchestration only; voices come from plugged-in TTS providers.

Speech generation Not covered

Voice cloning Not covered

Speech recognition Not covered

Voice agents Partial replacement

For speech generation, voice cloning, speech recognition, see other ElevenLabs alternatives. You may also need to build an interface, an API server and hosting yourself.

Facts, with sources

Every answer links to where we found it. We read the documentation; we did not install it.

Report a correction

QuestionAnswerSourceChecked

Runs on my machine? Yes, self-hosted with Docker; also usable as a Python package We have dockerized the setup in local_setup/. github.com · bolna#local-example-setup-will-be-moved-to-a-different-repository ↗ 1d ago

Code licence MIT github.com · LICENSE ↗ 1d ago

Model weights licence No separate model weights; each plugged-in provider has its own terms github.com · bolna#supported-providers-and-models ↗ 1d ago

Commercial use Yes for the framework (MIT); check each provider's terms github.com · LICENSE ↗ 1d ago

Paid services needed? Phone calls need a Twilio or Plivo account; ASR, LLM and TTS can be paid APIs or self-hosted endpoints A basic local setup includes usage of Twilio or Plivo for telephony. github.com · bolna#local-example-setup-will-be-moved-to-a-different-repository ↗ 1d ago

Hardware Not documented; depends on the providers you choose Know the answer? —

Operating systems Local telephony examples use Docker Compose V2; the reviewed README does not establish native Windows/macOS/Linux support or a tested host OS matrix We have dockerized the setup in `local_setup/`. github.com · bolna#local-example-setup-will-be-moved-to-a-different-repository ↗ today

Setup effort Medium; Docker Compose with four containers plus .env provider keys and an ngrok token This script will check for Docker dependencies, build all services with BuildKit enabled, and start them in detached mode. github.com · bolna#quick-start ↗ 1d ago