Cartesia vs Tavus
A side-by-side comparison of capabilities, autonomy, integrations, and pricing to help you choose.
Short answer: choose Cartesia if you want low-latency voice ai models and a platform for real-time voice agents (Assistant, freemium); choose Tavus if you want api-first conversational video ai for real-time face-to-face agents (Supervised agent, freemium).
| Cartesia | Tavus | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Low-latency voice AI models and a platform for real-time voice agents | API-first conversational video AI for real-time face-to-face agents |
| Type | platform | platform |
| Autonomy | Assistant | Supervised agent |
| Pricing | freemium · Free (20K credits/mo); Pro $5/mo | freemium · $59/mo (Starter) |
| Best for | developers, enterprise | developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise |
| Deployment | saas, api, self-hosted, on-prem | saas, api |
| Modalities | text, voice, api, code | video, voice, text, api |
| Models | proprietary | proprietary, model-agnostic |
| Protocols | rest-api, function-calling | rest-api, function-calling |
| Integrations | LiveKit, Twilio, Pipecat, Vapi | OpenAI-compatible LLMs, @tavus/react-cvi (npm), REST API, Daily / WebRTC, custom infrastructure (Vercel, AWS) |
| Capabilities | 4 documented | 6 documented |
Cartesia
- +Genuinely differentiated state-space-model tech with best-in-class latency and on-device efficiency
- +Full stack (TTS, STT, cloning, and the Line agent platform) plus deep ecosystem integrations and self-hosted/VPC options
- +Strong technical credibility and capital, including NVIDIA backing
- -Younger and less battle-tested than ElevenLabs and Deepgram; the Line agent platform is barely a year old
- -Closed, proprietary models (no open weights for production Sonic/Ink), creating lock-in
Tavus
- +API-first and bring-your-own-LLM, so the conversation logic and knowledge stay in your stack
- +Low-latency real-time video (reportedly ~600ms speech-to-video) with perception and turn-taking, not just lip-sync
- +Generous free tier and a clear usage-based ladder priced on conversational minutes
- -Minutes-based usage pricing can climb quickly for high-volume, always-on agents
- -It supplies the video front-end, not the agent's reasoning, so you still build and own the LLM and knowledge
Which should you choose?
Cartesia is low-latency voice ai models and a platform for real-time voice agents, best for developers, enterprise. Tavus is api-first conversational video ai for real-time face-to-face agents, best for developers, smb, mid-market, enterprise. The right choice depends on the autonomy level you want, your existing integrations, and your budget, all compared above.
This comparison is generated from the sourced Cartesia and Tavus profiles. Open either profile to review its evidence and last-reviewed date.