V 
Vapi
A developer platform for building voice AI phone agents.
NOT REALLY
why this verdict
Keep it — OpenAI has not replaced it
OpenAI's version overlaps, but does not finish the voice & audio job, so this one is still worth keeping open.
- A named launch, not a vibe named, unlinked
- Realtime speech-to-speech APIs from the labs themselves. OpenAI, March 1, 2025 — no announcement link recorded yet.
- How much of the job it covers not the job editorial call
- Parts of it. The job still needs the tool to get finished.
- Is there a free way to do it? yes
- 1 of 3 listed replacements have a usable free tier: LiveKit.
- What the call is worth nothing to cancel
- No paid entry tier tracked, so there is no subscription to cancel.
Reason composed from the fields above missing: announcement linked recorded: free replacement listed recorded: two or more escape hatches
- Threatened by
- OpenAI
- Since
- March 1, 2025
- List price
- free
- Per year
- —
The backstory
Vapi orchestrates the messy middle of voice agents: telephony, turn-taking, interruption handling, function calls mid-conversation and swapping the underlying models. Realtime APIs give you a model that talks; they do not give you a phone number, a call log or a barge-in policy.
Escape hatches
R 
Retell AI Direct competitor.
retellai.com open_in_new B 
Bland AI More opinionated, phone-first.
bland.ai open_in_new L 
LiveKit Open-source realtime infrastructure.
livekit.io open_in_new1 of 3 replacements have a usable free tier.