OpenRing

The open-source, self-hosted Vapi alternative for voice AI agents. Vapi-compatible API, no platform fee.

OpenRing runs AI phone agents, voice AI agents and AI receptionists that answer and place calls over Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage or any SIP trunk, with your own provider keys or a free, 100% local stack (Whisper, Ollama, Kokoro).

_{Latest release 0.1.7 · README updated November 11, 2026}

Quick start · How it works · Compare · API guide · Providers · Roadmap · Discussions

Hosted voice platforms charge a fee for every minute of every call, on top of what you already pay for speech-to-text, the model, the voice and the phone line. OpenRing does the same job on your own computer or server, with your own provider keys, and speaks the same JSON as Vapi.

• 💸 No platform fee, ever. You pay Deepgram, OpenAI, Twilio or whoever you pick, directly, at their price.
• 🔁 Vapi-compatible. Same assistant JSON, provider names, tool calls and webhooks: a Vapi client moves over by changing its base URL, and Import copies an account in one click.
• 🖥️ Yours. Keys, calls and transcripts stay on your machine. No telemetry.
• 🆓 Free to try. A free local voice (Kokoro) is built in, so your first test call costs nothing.

_{The dashboard, with sample data.}

⚡ Quick start

You need Node.js 18 or later. Everything else, Python included, installs itself:

npx openring

The dashboard opens at http://localhost:8000. From there:

1. Choose a password. The first visit asks for one (only from this computer).
2. Connect providers on the Providers page: Deepgram for speech (new accounts get US$200 of credit) and a model, for example Groq's free tier or one-click sign-in with OpenRouter. Each key is checked with the provider before it's saved.
3. Create an assistant on Assistants: a greeting, instructions, a model and a voice.
4. Talk to it. Press Test and speak into your microphone. No phone number needed.
5. Give it a number when you're ready: see Phone calls.

Settings live in ~/.openring/.env, created on the first run with a generated API key for apps that call the API (it's under Settings). The free Kokoro voice downloads itself on the first start (about 120 MB).

🧭 How it works

flowchart LR
  caller["Caller<br/>phone or browser"] <-->|audio| line["Twilio or WebRTC"]
  line <--> openring
  subgraph openring["OpenRing, on your server"]
    direction LR
    stt["Speech-to-text<br/>Deepgram, Whisper, ..."] --> llm["Model<br/>OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, ..."] --> tts["Voice<br/>ElevenLabs, Kokoro, ..."]
  end
  llm <-->|"tools and webhooks, in Vapi's format"| app["Your app"]

Each call runs a Pipecat pipeline: the caller's speech becomes text, the model answers (and can call your tools), and the voice speaks the answer back. Every turn's latency is recorded, step by step, and shown in the dashboard.

Overview. Calls, minutes, response time and what the providers charged.	Every call. Transcript, latency per turn, cost per provider, and each provider switch with its reason.
Assistants. Transcriber, model (or a route) and voice, in the order a call goes through them.	Model routes. Fastest, Cheapest, Reliable or Custom, with each model's measured speed and price.

📊 How it compares

— means we didn't find it in their public docs. On every platform you also pay for the model, the voice and the phone line, and for speech-to-text too, except that Retell's pricing page lists no separate charge for it. With OpenRing, the server, its uptime and any compliance work are yours; hosted platforms take on the first two and help with the third (for HIPAA, Vapi charges US$2,000 a month and Retell says there's no extra fee). Prices and features are from each company's public pages and docs on November 8, 2026 (prices rechecked that day); check them before you decide. OpenRing isn't affiliated with any of them.

🔁 Moving from Vapi

Copy every assistant, squad, tool and Twilio number of an account in one request, or press Import on the Assistants page. The key is used once and never stored; importing again updates what came in before.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/import \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $OPENRING_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"baseUrl": "https://api.vapi.ai", "apiKey": "YOUR_VAPI_PRIVATE_KEY"}'

The answer lists each assistant with anything that keeps it from taking calls here yet (for example a provider OpenRing doesn't support yet). Documents keep their full JSON, so nothing is lost. Then point your client's base URL at your server, and each imported Twilio number's voice webhook at $PUBLIC_URL/twilio/voice.

📖 API guide

Every request takes Authorization: Bearer $OPENRING_API_KEY, and the JSON is Vapi's. The full guide is in docs/api.md:

• Assistants, names the transcriber should get right and recording calls
• Phone calls, campaigns, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage, Genesys Cloud and SIP trunks
• Tools, server messages, knowledge bases and squads
• Provider fallback, model routes and what a call costs

🆓 The free stack

100% local. Whisper, Ollama and Kokoro together cost nothing per minute, and the call's audio never leaves your computer. In the assistant editor, press Use the free local stack, or:

"transcriber": {"provider": "whisper", "model": "base", "language": "en"},
"model": {"provider": "ollama", "model": "llama3.2"},
"voice": {"provider": "kokoro", "voiceId": "af_heart"}

Install Ollama and run ollama pull llama3.2 first; the Providers page shows whether it is running and which models it has. Whisper downloads its model once, when an assistant first uses it (tiny 75 MB, base 145 MB, small 480 MB; also medium, large-v3 and large-v3-turbo, or any faster-whisper repo on Hugging Face). It runs on an NVIDIA GPU when there is one, otherwise on the CPU: on a 2018 laptop a four-second sentence takes about 0.6 s with tiny and 1.2 s with base, about twice that with "language": "multi", so pick the language when you know it. A local model on a laptop also answers slower than a cloud one; a desktop GPU makes the whole stack quick.

🔌 Providers

Provider names are Vapi's, so an assistant JSON moves between the two unchanged. Connect each one from the dashboard's Providers page, or put its key in ~/.openring/.env.

Callers in any language. With "language": "multi" (Follow the caller in the dashboard) the transcriber detects the language, OpenRing tells the model to answer in it and to switch when the caller switches, and an ElevenLabs or OpenAI voice reads whatever language it gets. Kokoro and Deepgram voices speak one language each; the dashboard says so when you pick one. With a Deepgram key you already have a fast cloud voice: {"provider": "deepgram", "voiceId": "thalia"}.

Requests to OpenRouter carry OpenRing's name, so OpenRouter can list it among the apps that use it; OPENRING_ATTRIBUTION=false leaves that out.

🐳 Docker

cp .env.example .env          # fill in your keys and OPENRING_PASSWORD
docker compose up --build     # dashboard and API on http://localhost:8000

On a server, set PUBLIC_URL to its https address so Twilio can reach it. There is a ready image, ghcr.io/elifalanrocha/openring, and a one-click Render blueprint; docs/deploy.md covers those, Railway and a plain VPS.

❓ FAQ

Can I move my Vapi assistants to OpenRing? Yes. OpenRing reads the same assistant JSON, provider names, tools and webhooks. Point your client at your server's base URL, or press Import to copy an account's assistants, tools, squads and Twilio numbers.

Can I run a voice AI agent for free? Yes, on your own computer: Whisper for speech-to-text, a model through Ollama and the Kokoro voice cost nothing per minute. Only a phone line costs money; browser test calls don't.

Which phone providers work? Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage, Genesys Cloud and SIP trunks. Only Twilio has taken real calls so far; the others are tested against simulated carriers, and each one's section says what's left to confirm. The comparison says what each one does today.

What does a call cost? What your providers charge, nothing more. Every call records its cost per provider at list prices, so the dashboard shows what you spent.

Do I need Docker or a GPU? No. npx openring installs everything, Python included. A GPU makes the local stack faster; cloud providers need none.

🧱 Principles

OpenRing never charges per minute, keeps your keys and data on your machine, stays compatible with Vapi clients, runs with one command and says plainly what works and what doesn't. The whole list, and how we decide what to build, is in PRINCIPLES.md.

🤝 Contributing

git clone https://github.com/elifalanrocha/openring && cd openring
pip install -e ".[dev,kokoro,whisper]"
pytest                 # a few minutes, no paid services or internet needed
python -m openring

Small pull requests get merged fastest. Start with CONTRIBUTING.md and the good first issues; see CHANGELOG.md for what shipped.

Questions, ideas and "look what I built" go to Discussions; bugs go to issues. If you have a phone provider account, testing it on a real call helps more than anything.

💛 Support the project

OpenRing is free and has no platform fee, and it stays that way. If it saves you money, you can help keep it going on Patreon, or with Pix if you're in Brazil (random key):

0e0094ed-3545-4bff-991c-4b927633ac4a

Telling someone who runs a voice agency about it helps just as much.

🔒 Security

openring generates OPENRING_API_KEY on its first run; without a key, the API answers only the computer it runs on, and example values such as change-me are refused and replaced. The dashboard has its own password: the first one can only be chosen from the server's own computer (http://localhost) or with OPENRING_PASSWORD, so a stranger who finds your tunnel URL cannot claim it first. Sessions are HttpOnly, SameSite=Strict cookies, and repeated wrong passwords are slowed down. Forgot it? openring --reset-password. Incoming calls need TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN: every Twilio webhook is checked against its X-Twilio-Signature, and calls are refused while the token is missing (VALIDATE_TWILIO_SIGNATURE=false turns the check off, for local tests only). Each call accepts a single media stream, so a replayed or second connection is dropped. Found a vulnerability? Please report it privately: see SECURITY.md.

⭐ Star history

📄 License

MIT. Not affiliated with Vapi, Retell, Dograh or Twilio. OpenRing builds on Pipecat and other open-source projects, credited in THIRD_PARTY.md.