bitHuman vs Simli
Simli: A speech-to-video API for real-time AI agents. bitHuman: real-time avatars that render on the device, on your servers with no GPU, offline or in the cloud.
Last checked October 8, 2026. Each fact links its public source as of the date beside it. Products change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Side by side
Each row lists what Simli and bitHuman state on their own pages.
What it makes
Simli
- Simli's speech-to-video API lets developers create lip-synced AI avatar interactions. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
bitHuman
- Essence 2 renders a photoreal person from one portrait, live. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Expression 2 renders any character from one portrait, live: people, animals, cartoons, creatures and robots. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- The talking-video API renders an MP4 of an agent speaking your audio, up to 120 seconds per job. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Real-time conversation
Simli
- Simli states its speech-to-video latency is under 300 ms, and notes its latency figures are estimates. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
bitHuman
- Bring your own speech-to-text, language model and voice and pay only the avatar rate, or let bitHuman run the whole conversation for one rate. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Developer tools
Simli
bitHuman
- SDKs and tools for Swift, Android, Flutter, Python, a web embed, a CLI and a REST API. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- A LiveKit plugin (livekit-plugins-bithuman) gives a LiveKit voice agent an avatar, rendered in the bitHuman cloud or inside your worker. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- A Pipecat integration (pipecat-bithuman) renders the avatar inside your bot's own process, on your own machine. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Avatars and languages
Simli
bitHuman
- Create your own avatar from one portrait; an Essence 2 avatar takes about 2 hours to create. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Pricing
Simli
- Simli's free plan gives $10 at sign-up and a monthly top-up of 50 minutes; paid plans offer volume discounts and pay-as-you-go billing. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Where Simli is stronger
- Simli states its speech-to-video latency is under 300 ms, and notes its latency figures are estimates. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Simli's free plan gives $10 at sign-up and a monthly top-up of 50 minutes; paid plans offer volume discounts and pay-as-you-go billing. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
Where bitHuman differs
- Expression 2 renders any character from one portrait, live: people, animals, cartoons, creatures and robots. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Renders on the device: iPhone, iPad and Mac, Android phones, or a browser tab with WebGPU. There is no render server to run. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Essence 2 and Expression 2 render live on the processor of an ordinary Linux PC, with no graphics card. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Fully offline with an offline license, for Business and Enterprise plans, on Linux and on Macs with Apple silicon. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- SDKs and tools for Swift, Android, Flutter, Python, a web embed, a CLI and a REST API. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- A LiveKit plugin (livekit-plugins-bithuman) gives a LiveKit voice agent an avatar, rendered in the bitHuman cloud or inside your worker. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- A Pipecat integration (pipecat-bithuman) renders the avatar inside your bot's own process, on your own machine. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
- Billed by the exact second in credits, 100 credits = $1: Essence 2 and Expression 2 cost 4 credits a minute in the cloud and 2 on your own hardware or device. (source, as of October 8, 2026)
About this comparison
We compare only facts that a company states on its own public pages, and we link each one. We are bitHuman, so read the sources yourself before you decide.
If you work at a company named here and a fact is wrong or out of date, email hello@bithuman.ai with the page and the source, and we will update it.