LOADING DATASHEET
GROUNDED IN REAL HUMAN CONVERSATIONSYOUR BENCH
Kokoro TTS
◆ OPEN
by Hexgrad
OPEN WEIGHTSHOSTEDAPIPAIDCREATIVE
RANKED #7 OF 34 AUDIO · OVERALL #181 OF 528 RANKED · VIBE SCORE 6.1 · 127 VOICES
COPY BADGE pastes a README snippet with the rank SVG.
Kokoro is a lightweight text-to-speech model that delivers comparable quality to larger models while being significantly faster and more cost-efficient.
HAPPY9.8
16 mentions
SAD5.2
3 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 86 voices
HONEYMOON FADING
Early praise is cooling off in recent weeks.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download Kokoro TTS once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
82M parameters, full precision weights are about 330 MB
- BARE MINIMUM
Raspberry Pi 5 (4GB) or budget CPU laptop
4 GB RAM
~$60FP32 or ONNX on CPU, ~2x real-time generation
- SWEET SPOT
Apple MacBook Air M2 (8GB)
8 GB UNIFIED RAM
~$700 USEDFP32 on Apple Silicon MPS / CPU, ~8x real-time generation
- FULL POWER
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB)
12 GB VRAM
~$280FP32 GPU batching and low-latency streaming, ~25x real-time generation
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
WILL MY BOX RUN KOKORO TTS?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long Kokoro TTS takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMRaspberry Pi 5 (4GB) or budget CPU laptop | SWEET SPOTApple MacBook Air M2 (8GB) | FULL POWERNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (12GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Narrate a scripta minute of spoken audio | ~30 S★★★★★ | ~8 S★★★★★ | ~2 S★★★★★ |
| Transcribe a recordinga ten minute recording turned into text | ~5 MIN★★★★★ | ~75 S★★★★★ | ~24 S★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
Not enough discussion about Kokoro TTS yet to call it. We found 127 posts but people did not say much either way.
113 POSTS · 14 COMMENTS · GITHUB · REDDIT · X · HACKER NEWS
PEOPLE LOVE
- No fan mail yet. The crowd is still warming up.
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- No complaints yet. The internet is still looking for one. Suspicious.
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Other models the crowd has fully reviewed, starting with audio models like this one.
MiniMax Music 3
ElevenLabs Music> SOURCES (12)
- REDDIT · 2026-05-17 · 634 UPVOTESI gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
I gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
- REDDIT · 2026-07-01 · 336 UPVOTESI'M FINALLY BACK WITH A REAL UPDATE ON MY WIP! UIE: FUGUE
I'M FINALLY BACK WITH A REAL UPDATE ON MY WIP! UIE: FUGUE
- REDDIT · 2026-05-17 · 290 UPVOTESI gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
I gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
- REDDIT · 2026-06-09 · 207 UPVOTESI gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
I gave ChatGPT a 24/7 radio station. It has been broadcasting for months and months.
- REDDIT · 2026-05-08 · 199 UPVOTESI Gave Claude Its Own Radio Station — It Won't Stop Broadcasting (It's Fine)
I Gave Claude Its Own Radio Station — It Won't Stop Broadcasting (It's Fine)
- REDDIT · 2025-11-11 · 137 UPVOTESOpen Source Alternative to NotebookLM
Open Source Alternative to NotebookLM
- REDDIT · 2025-08-15 · 100 UPVOTESLocal Open Source Alternative to NotebookLM
Local Open Source Alternative to NotebookLM
- REDDIT · 2025-12-24 · 62 UPVOTESSelf Hosted Alternative to NotebookLM
Self Hosted Alternative to NotebookLM
- REDDIT · 2025-12-09 · 60 UPVOTESOpen Source Alternative to NotebookLM
Open Source Alternative to NotebookLM
- REDDIT · 2025-09-30 · 57 UPVOTESOpen Source Alternative to Perplexity
Open Source Alternative to Perplexity
- REDDIT · 2025-10-14 · 53 UPVOTESOpen Source Alternative to Perplexity
Open Source Alternative to Perplexity
- REDDIT · 2025-03-12 · 50 UPVOTESKokoro TTS + RVC Voice Changer changed my audio game
Kokoro TTS + RVC Voice Changer changed my audio game