build a voice agent
a voice agent listens to a person, thinks, and talks back, all in real time. the loop is always the same four steps:with pipecat
build a voice agent using pipecat, an open-source framework for real-time voice.
with livekit
build a voice agent using livekit agents, with rooms and telephony built in.
which framework?
both give you a production-ready real-time agent. the difference is what they ship around the voice loop:| pipecat | livekit | |
|---|---|---|
| best for | a lightweight, code-first pipeline you fully control | rooms, web/mobile SDKs, and phone calls out of the box |
| transport | brings its own | livekit’s WebRTC rooms |
| rumik plugin | pipecat-rumik | livekit-plugins-rumik-ai |
these guides assume you can run python and use a terminal. you do not need prior
experience with voice agents.