# Pipecat

> Pipecat (by Daily) orchestrates speech-to-text, LLM, text-to-speech and transport services into real-time voice agents; it does not include its own models. BSD-2-Clause. The official quickstart uses paid Deepgram, OpenAI and Cartesia API keys, but docs list local options: Whisper STT, Ollama LLM, Piper TTS, plus local and WebRTC transports. Python 3.11+. Hardware depends on the services you choose.

- Repository: https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat
- Official docs: https://docs.pipecat.ai
- Checked: 2026-10-16

## What it replaces
- ElevenLabs: Voice agents (partial). Framework only; voice quality and cost depend on the STT, LLM and TTS services you plug in.
- Vapi: Voice agents, Phone calls (telephony) (partial). Self-hosted framework; phone calls via Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo and other serializers, which you pay separately.

## Facts, with sources

| Question | Status | Answer | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on my machine? | Confirmed | Yes, runs on your machine; also deployable to Pipecat Cloud | https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat#-getting-started | 2026-10-15 |
| Code licence | Confirmed | BSD-2-Clause | https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat/blob/main/LICENSE | 2026-10-15 |
| Model weights licence | Confirmed | No separate model weights; each plugged-in service or model has its own terms | https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat#-available-services | 2026-10-15 |
| Commercial use | Confirmed | Yes for the framework (BSD-2-Clause); check the licence or terms of each service you plug in | https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat/blob/main/LICENSE | 2026-10-15 |
| Paid services needed? | Partial | Quickstart needs Deepgram, OpenAI and Cartesia API keys; documented local alternatives include Whisper STT (Faster Whisper or MLX), Ollama LLM and Piper TTS, so a fully local pipeline is possible | https://docs.pipecat.ai/api-reference/server/services/stt/whisper | 2026-10-15 |
| Hardware | Unknown | Not documented for the framework; depends on the chosen services | none found | - |
| Operating systems | Unknown | Reviewed Python-framework README, quickstart and local-bot guide document uv-based execution but no server OS support matrix. The separate C++ client's platform list does not verify Python server compatibility | https://docs.pipecat.ai/pipecat/get-started/quickstart.md | 2026-10-16 |
| Setup effort | Confirmed | Easy; uv or pip install pipecat-ai with extras per service, Python 3.11+, plus API keys or local services | https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat#manual-installation | 2026-10-15 |

GitHub: 16526 stars, 2892 forks, last push 2026-10-16, archived: no.
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Source: RepoQuarry (https://repoquarry.dev/projects/pipecat). Data licence: CC BY 4.0. Quotes are from project documentation and belong to their authors.