Coqui TTS vs Speaches
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Speaches
OpenAI-compatible speech-to-text and text-to-speech server
| Feature | Coqui TTS | Speaches |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 31 · At risk | 83 · Excellent |
| Category | Self-Hosted AI | Self-Hosted AI |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 4,096 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source, docker | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 46,056 | ★ 3,677 |
| First released | 2021 | 2024 |
| Replaces | ElevenLabs | OpenAI Audio API, ElevenLabs |
What are Coqui TTS and Speaches?
Coqui TTS
Coqui TTS is a library and toolkit for advanced text-to-speech generation, including voice cloning with the XTTS model. It supports many languages and pretrained voices for fully local speech synthesis.
- Multilingual synthesis
- XTTS voice cloning
- Many pretrained models
- Trainable on custom data
Speaches
Speaches is a self-hosted server that provides OpenAI-compatible transcription, translation, and text-to-speech endpoints. It supports streaming and a range of open speech models for private voice applications.
- OpenAI-compatible audio API
- Streaming transcription
- Text-to-speech support
- Multiple open models
Coqui TTS vs Speaches: key differences
Both projects are written in Python. Licensing differs — MPL-2.0 for Coqui TTS versus MIT for Speaches. Speaches is the lighter option, starting around 2,048 MB of RAM against 4,096 MB for Coqui TTS. Coqui TTS is the more established project (first released 2021), while Speaches arrived in 2024. Coqui TTS has the considerably larger community, at 46,056 GitHub stars versus 3,677.
Why pick each one
Choose Coqui TTS if…
- XTTS voice cloning
- Many languages supported
- Fully local synthesis
Watch out for
- Upstream development slowed
- GPU needed for speed
Choose Speaches if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Frequently asked questions
Is Coqui TTS or Speaches better?
Neither is universally better. Coqui TTS has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Coqui TTS and Speaches free and open-source?
Yes. Coqui TTS is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Speaches under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Coqui TTS and Speaches with Docker?
Coqui TTS: yes. Speaches: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Coqui TTS or Speaches?
Speaches has the smaller minimum footprint at 2,048 MB of RAM, compared to about 4,096 MB for Coqui TTS. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.