Side by side

Aria TTS vs Kyutai TTS

Both stand on text-to-speech software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Aria TTS

Free plan APIiPhoneSelf-hosted+1

Aria TTS offers an open model with expressive tags, streaming timestamps, multiple deployment paths, and stated commercial use. Its not-yet-ready status is the main practical constraint despite the free license and included weights.

Visit Aria TTS

Kyutai TTS

Free plan APIiPhoneLinux+4

Choose Kyutai TTS if you want free, open-source speech generation, particularly Pocket TTS for CPU use or TTS 1.6B for streaming applications. Look elsewhere if your Pocket TTS workflow depends on creating pauses by inserting silence in the input text.

Visit Kyutai TTS

The facts

	Aria TTS	Kyutai TTS
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	API, iPhone, Self-hosted, Web	API, iPhone, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Web, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Not published	Free or on request
Plans published	None	2
Maker	Not published	Kyutai TTS
Website	aria-tts.org	kyutai.org
On text-to-speech software	#29 of 223	#33 of 223

Aria TTS: what it does well

MIT-licensed open-source model
Supports expressive inline speech tags
Streams audio with word-level timestamps
Offers iOS on-device inference
No usage caps or phone-home behavior

What to know first

English is the only listed language
The site says it is not yet ready
Unlimited reserved-instance infrastructure is listed at $42/mo
Model output is 32 kHz audio

Kyutai TTS: what it does well

Free, open-source models, with Pocket TTS under the MIT license.
Pocket TTS is designed for real-time CPU use.
Seven languages are listed for Pocket TTS.
Offers voice cloning, API access, and WAV export.
Browser demo works without installation.

What to know first

Pocket TTS requires Python 3.10–3.14 and PyTorch 2.5 or later.
Adding pauses with silence in Pocket TTS input text is unsupported.

Alternatives to Aria TTS Alternatives to Kyutai TTS The whole list