# Vapi

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Vapi and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Voice agent platform people recommend for its integrated developer experience and for handling much of the agent harness. The most common caveat is cost, mainly the platform fee.

## Why people recommend it

- Integrated developer experience (1 comments): "The integrated developer experience is much better on Vapi, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46384843))
- Middleware for voice agents (1 comments): "This adds to the case for middleware providers like Vapi, LiveKit, and Layercode." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574286))
- Handles much of harness (1 comments): "they do a lot of work on the harness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47502335))
- Seen as promising (1 comments): "This is look pretty promising" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47353671))

## What people warn about

- High cost, platform fees (2 comments): "I don't like Vapi due to 1) extensive GUI driven experience, 2) cost" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46385230)) "60–70% of our total spend was the Vapi platform fee" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189900))
- Extensive GUI-driven experience (1 comments): "I don't like Vapi due to 1) extensive GUI driven experience, 2) cost" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46385230))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Unpod.ai](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unpod-ai.md): 8 recommend
- [Asterisk AI Voice Agent](https://hackerapproved.com/p/asterisk-ai-voice-agent.md): 7 recommend
- [Dograh](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dograh.md): 6 recommend
- [Speko](https://hackerapproved.com/p/speko.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://vapi.ai/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Vapi", https://hackerapproved.com/p/vapi/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).