# Sopro TTS

13 Hacker News commenters recommended Sopro TTS and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Small open text-to-speech model with voice cloning, free and easy to run locally; people like its size and speed, but most critics find the audio quality poor and robotic.

## Why people recommend it

- Impressive for its small size (2 comments): "It's impressive given the constraints! Would you consider releasing a more capable version that renders with fewer artifacts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547041)) "It's sounds shitty. But given the small size and speed it's still impressive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550798))
- Easy to use and run locally (2 comments): "Very nice to have done this by yourself, locally." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46547063)) "Also increadibly easy to use, thanks for this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46549656))
- Promising and expected to improve (2 comments): "Very cool. I'd love a slightly larger version with hopefully improved voice quality." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546728)) "This is very cool! And it'll only get better." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46551879))

## What people warn about

- Poor, robotic audio quality (7 comments): "it sounds absolutely horrible, far worse than computer voices sounded fifteen years ago" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46548712)) "It sounds absolutely dreadful. Would drive me nuts to listen to for more than a minute." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554106)) "It's sounds shitty. But given the small size and speed it's still impressive." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550798))
- Distorted, unstable speech (2 comments): "It’s not SOTA in most cases, can be a bit unstable, and sometimes fails to capture voice likeness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539899)) "it's immediately off putting in distortion and mangling of pronunciation" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553151))
- Often fails to match voice (2 comments): "It’s not SOTA in most cases, can be a bit unstable, and sometimes fails to capture voice likeness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539899)) "the generated audio is not similar at all, it's not even a proper voice" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550254))
- Not state of the art (2 comments): "It’s not SOTA in most cases, can be a bit unstable, and sometimes fails to capture voice likeness." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46539899)) "I wouldn’t say it’s the best, far from that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46553694))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [ElevenLabs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/elevenlabs.md): 59 recommend
- [Kokoro TTS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kokoro-tts.md): 59 recommend
- [Pocket TTS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/pocket-tts.md): 41 recommend
- [Qwen3-TTS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen3-tts.md): 41 recommend
- [Kitten TTS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kitten-tts.md): 33 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Sopro TTS", https://hackerapproved.com/p/sopro-tts/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).