VOICEVOX
Free offline Japanese text-to-speech engine with expressive character voices.
About
VOICEVOX is a free Japanese text-to-speech engine that runs entirely on your machine, with no account or network round-trip required. It ships with a cast of expressive character voices (Zundamon, Shikoku Metan, and others) plus a local HTTP engine API that other apps can call.
It is hugely popular with Japanese VTubers, video commentators, and hobby developers. Licensing caveat: use is free for commercial and non-commercial projects, but a VOICEVOX credit (VOICEVOX:character) is mandatory wherever the audio appears, and each voice library carries its own terms.
What it can do
- Offline Japanese TTS with 127+ voice styles
- Local HTTP engine API for integrations
- Mandatory-credit free commercial use
- No account, fully private synthesis
Setup
Download the VOICEVOX app from the official site; start the engine (default http://127.0.0.1:50021).
Prerequisites
A Windows, macOS, or Linux machine; Japanese text to synthesize.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (metrics tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 102; Trending score 72/100 from researcher assessment.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.