Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech
Ranked 12 of 18 text-to-speech models by recommenders
People praise its expressive, natural-sounding speech and its large voice library with tight control. Common caveat: it is not production ready and can sound artificial.
People praise its expressive, natural-sounding speech and its large voice library with tight control. Common caveat: it is not production ready and can sound artificial.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Expressive, natural-sounding speech
“The Google model produces extremely expressive output. To my ears, it's on par with Eleven v3, which was already amazing.”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” “does not sound neither tinny nor monotone”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” Low cost per experiment
“it's very expensive - most of my experiments have cost less than a cent.”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” “Great price at least until December 31 too.”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Ignores prompt or vocal cues
“the results are really not very good, and usually not particularly close to the prompt”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” “it is clearly ignoring the vocal cues like”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” Randomly moans between phrases
“we have a very different experience when it comes to moaning”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech” “it randomly moans between phrases”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech”
Other text-to-speech models people recommend
The four most recommended other text-to-speech models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | 59 | 20 | 75% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Kokoro TTS | 59 | 9 | 87% | 11 | 1 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Pocket TTS | 41 | 16 | 72% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Qwen3-TTS | 41 | 13 | 76% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Gemini 3.8 text-to-speechThis page | 8 | 6 | 57% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
All 14 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it is impressive they have good quality no matter the language for the same voice”
“Great toys but not production ready.”
“The Google model produces extremely expressive output. To my ears, it's on par with Eleven v3, which was already amazing.”
“it is clearly ignoring the vocal cues like”
“we have a very different experience when it comes to moaning”
“it's very expensive - most of my experiments have cost less than a cent.”
“it randomly moans between phrases”
“Still sounds AI, you can tell they exaggerate all the tone”
“How long is this stored? What could go wrong? :P”
“I guess their roll out is a bit sloppy.”
“the results are really not very good, and usually not particularly close to the prompt”
“Great price at least until December 31 too.”
“this Gemini 3.8 specific large voice library and ability to tightly control”
“does not sound neither tinny nor monotone”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.