Supertonic TTS
Shares rank 10 of 18 text-to-speech models by recommenders
People recommend it as a very fast, tiny open-source text-to-speech model that runs well on CPU. Critics say its audio quality is only decent for its speed and it lacks extra features.
People recommend it as a very fast, tiny open-source text-to-speech model that runs well on CPU. Critics say its audio quality is only decent for its speed and it lacks extra features.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Very fast, even on CPU
“it was by far the fastest, but its audio quality for something so fast was decent”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users” “I was getting about 175x real time while on cpu only it was 55x realtime”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users” “The model is tiny, runs 55x real time on any potato and sounds amazing.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users” - Comment from 16 Jan 2026 in “Pocket TTS: A high quality TTS that gives your CPU a voice”
Tiny, runs on modest hardware
“The model is tiny, runs 55x real time on any potato and sounds amazing.”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users” “Supertonic fits under 300mb ram, and is fine for my uses.”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Notation – an iOS chess coach (Stockfish and optional BYOK Claude)” “Its light weight and can run on web inference.”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Voice driven murder mystery, Interview AI suspects with your voice” Newer versions well regarded
“Supertonic 3 is another great model in the same weight class”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro” “Multilingual and local? Try out Supertonic 2.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)” “Supertonic 3 is pretty amazing too.”
Comment from 8 Jul 2026 in “Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Audio quality only decent
“it was by far the fastest, but its audio quality for something so fast was decent”
Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users” Lacks extra features
“it didnt have the other bells and whistles like some other models”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “The State of Modern AI Text to Speech Systems for Screen Reader Users”
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 |
| Supertonic TTSThis page | 9 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Its light weight and can run on web inference.”
“Supertonic 3 is pretty amazing too.”
“Supertonic 3 is another great model in the same weight class”
“Supertonic fits under 300mb ram, and is fine for my uses.”
“Multilingual and local? Try out Supertonic 2.”
“it was by far the fastest, but its audio quality for something so fast was decent”
“I was getting about 175x real time while on cpu only it was 55x realtime”
“it didnt have the other bells and whistles like some other models”
“The model is tiny, runs 55x real time on any potato and sounds amazing.”
“this looks really interesting and claimed speed is nuts”
“code available and bindings for so many languages”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.