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Growth · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to I generated 70k audiobooks with OpenAI Text-to-Speech

Hey HN. I’m Ivan, hacker from Ukraine. For about a year, I was working on Listenly — an app to listen to text content with OpenAI's natural-sounding text-to-speech model. At some moment, I realized that it would be cool to take all the public domain e-books and create audio versions for them. So I did it... kind-of. It would cost an immense amount of money to generate all the audio right away (OpenAI TTS costs approximately $0.84/hour of audio; 11labs, for comparison, is 10 times more expensive). So, I took a more gradual approach. I took all the metadata from the Project Gutenberg…

Listenly is an app that converts public domain e-books from Project Gutenberg into audiobooks using OpenAI's text-to-speech technology. Users can browse a catalog of approximately 70,000 books and listen to them… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier. I generated 70k audiobooks with OpenAI Text-to-Speech launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Read faster, stay focused & absorb more - Create Audiobooks

    2017 · speechify.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Books and papers turned into podcast chats

    2024 · illuminate.google.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Structure, edit, and generate long-form audio with precision

    2025 · elevenlabs.io · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Hi HN, I’m Michael, creator of AudiowaveAI. I started this project out of frustration when I couldn't find an audiobook version of Make by Pieter Levels. The available text-to-speech options were either too robotic, overly complex, or simply too costly. It works really well for non-fiction long-form content (i.e. hours of audio). It’s early days for AudiowaveAI, and I’m looking for feedback to improve the product. Try it out and share your thoughts: [AudiowaveAI](https://audiowaveai.com). Thanks!

    2024 · audiowaveai.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Free text-to-speech generator with realistic AI voices

    2024 · textreader.ai · its alternatives →

  6. 6
    Outtloud▲208

    Create unlimited audiobooks & podcasts from your documents!

    2025 · outtloud.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    A few years ago, right after high school, I decided to try to make a simultaneous translation app for Android as a side project, it took longer than expected (about 2 years) and I had to make a lot of compromises (I had to use Google's API and therefore make users use a developer key because at the time there were no free solutions for speech recognition and translation that had good quality). At the end of university, I decided to pick it up again and finally, using OpenAi's Whisper for speech recognition and Meta's NLLB for translation (with both running locally on the phone), I managed to…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Create AI voiceovers with 1500+ voices in 80+ languages. Use text to speech, voice cloning, and studio controls for videos, audiobooks, courses, and ads.

    2018 · auditus.cc · its alternatives →

  9. 9
    HearIt▲81

    Create your own audio books from any file for free.

    2020 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Turn instantly any article into a podcast with one click

    2024 · chromewebstore.google.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11
    Kuluko▲145

    Turn your ideas into 3h+ custom Audiobooks

    2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12PT

    Hi HN! I'm stoked to share a project I've been working on called PDF to Podcast. It's a free, open-source tool that automatically converts PDF documents into engaging, informative podcast-style audio content using large language models and text-to-speech tech. Inspiration: The idea for this project came from the NotebookLM demo at Google I/O, where they showcased generating audio dialogue from uploaded PDFs and other sources. However, that audio feature hasn't been publicly released yet, and I wanted to challenge myself to build something similar using existing tools and APIs. How it…

    2024 · pdf-to-podcast.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Free AI transcription: convert video and audio to text, translate into 120 languages, download SRT, VTT, ASS or TXT, or export the video with subtitles on it.

    2022 · freesubtitles.ai · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    ElevenLabs & Spotify make audiobook publishing effortless

    2025 · findawayvoices.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15OI

    Hello HN community! I'm excited to introduce a project I've recently launched: Oration, an iOS app designed to convert PDFs into audiobooks. This idea was inspired by my experiences as an engineering student with ADHD, struggling to engage with dense academic papers. Relying on Text-to-Speech tools, despite their robotic quality, was a workaround for me and others with similar learning preferences or challenges, such as Dyslexia. Recognizing the limitations of existing tools—difficulty with complex formats, inability to skip over citations or footnotes, and inadequate handling of tables,…

    2024 · oration.app · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    $0.15/hr audio transcription API powered by OpenAI Whisper

    2022 · whisperapi.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    QuickPiperAudiobook locally generates an mp3 audiobook on Linux with one easy command. It can convert PDFs, epub, mobi, and many more by using ebook-convert. It uses any piper TTS model, and thus supports a wide variety of languages. I've had great success using it to read more while reducing eye strain and computer usage. I think I've probably read 30 or so books this way now over the past year. Being able to listen to any content you want in audio form free and offline while going for a walk is extremely handy. I hope it helps you as well! Cheers

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Generate ebooks and audiobooks on any topic, in minutes

    2023 · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    PDF, eBooks to Audiobooks, MP3 with OpenAI Text To Speech

    2024 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Transcribe & translate audios

    2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    eBook to Audiobook in Minutes, using AI Text-To-Speech

    2025 · audiobookcreator.io · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Instantly convert your articles into high-quality audio. You can choose from over 140 languages and natural-sounding human voices.

    2022 · article.audio · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Create AI voiceovers with 1500+ voices in 80+ languages. Use text to speech, voice cloning, and studio controls for videos, audiobooks, courses, and ads.

    2019 · auditus.cc · its alternatives →

  24. 2401

    Hey HN! I've been working on a side project to create an audio transcription API based on the OpenAI whisper model. Sign up link: https://whisperapi.com I tried to make the API really easy to use and get setup with. Also, because the Whisper model is so good, turns out I can offer the service for about 75% cheaper than what seems like the industry average. I'm always looking to make improvements, so would appreciate any feedback anyone has!

    2022 · whisperapi.com · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →