15.ai is a site that provides free text to voice software based on AI, with voices available from a wide range of characters.
It is able to instantly generate text to voice with very little trainable data, providing popular characters for voice generation, including those from movies, such as Steven Universe.
The generated voice-overs sound surprisingly realistic, with different intonations used each time.
However, 15.ai was taken down, supposedly in preparation for an update. As of this writing, it has been down for over a year – since September 2022.
There is no clear indication when it will be back online or if it will come back altogether. With that in mind, I have created a list of the best 15.ai alternatives you can use in the meanwhile.
The short version: The best alternatives to 15.ai include Uberduck, FakeYou, Resemble.ai, and Google Cloud’s own text to speech tool.
Read on to learn more about them.
Best 15.ai Alternatives
1. Uberduck.ai
Uberduck.ai is the best and probably the most popular alternative to 15.ai.
It has tons of amazing features, and not only does it support text to speech, but it goes beyond generative voice-over AI and also allows you to create music!
There are several features offered by Uberduck.AI, so let’s quickly go over them, one by one.
First up, we have text to voice, which is probably what you are most interested in if you are looking for a 15.ai alternative.
There are several dozen voices to choose from, including male and female voices and voices with different regional accents. Some characters speak using Australian or British English, for example.
Characters also have different moods. Some use an angry tone of voice, for example, while others are neutral.
You can listen to a sample of each voice before picking it. The voices sound natural and real, although I’ve got to say that some are better and sound more realistic than others.
Once you select the character you would like to use, you can input your text at the bottom of the page and then click on “Generate Speech” to generate the voice-over.
You can then listen to the generated audio and download it if you like it. If you don’t like it, feel free to change the voice you are using by clicking on Change Voice and selecting a different voice.
You can keep changing the voice you are using. All the generated audio will appear in the download section, so you can listen to all of them and download the ones you like.
While incredibly simple and easy to use, the tool does require you to sign in before you can start using it. If you don’t see any voices appear, it’s probably because you haven’t yet signed in.
The next feature is voice to voice, which is pretty cool. There are fewer voices to choose from – 14 instead of 43, as of the time of this writing.
What you do is record your own voice and then transform it into a different voice. You can upload an MP3 file or simply record audio directly on the site.
If you already have audio, this will save you a lot of time, because you won’t need to transcribe your audio before generating a new voice-over.
What makes Uberduck really interesting, though, and the reason I put it first (other than the excellent voice quality) is that it allows you to make AI music!
The first step is selecting your beat.
As you can see in the screenshot, there are several beats to choose from at the moment, and you can also choose the A cappella (no beat) option if you don’t want a beat.
There is also the option of uploading your own beat, although you will need to be a premium subscriber to use this feature.
The next step is generating the lyrics. The AI will generate the lyrics for you – all you need to do is input a prompt and tell the AI chatbot what you want the lyrics to be about.
For example, you can tell it to make a verse about heading to Miami for spring break. The AI will generate a verse that fits the beat you selected.
Next up, you choose your voice. There are several voices already available, but you can also upload your own voice sample – it could be your own or even a random famous person.
Finally, once all is done, download the generated rap music and show it off!
Explore the best alternatives to Uberduck here.
2. FakeYou
FakeYou, formerly vocodes.com, is a tool that lets you create “deep fake” audio using AI. You can create audio using voices from popular people and harness the power of AI to create realistic-sounding voice-overs generated from text you inputted.
There are currently over 3,600 voices to choose from. Donald Trump’s voice, for example, comes in a few versions – sarcastic, angry, casual, etc.
Just input the celebrity or movie character you like. An example of a movie character is The Joker.
One thing I liked is how each voice has a rating, letting you know the quality of the voice-over.
Once you choose your voice, input your text and generate an audio.
Personally, I feel like FakeYou has some room to improve when it comes to audio quality. I chose Donald Trump’s voice, and while the generated audio definitely sounded like him, it also sounded a bit robotic.
There is also the voice to voice option. You can upload your own audio and select from over 2,500 different voices, such as 2pac, 50 cent, and Maluma (all popular singers) and transform your voice to theirs.
This feature is perfect for generating rap or music, as it comes with pitch control.
There are two other useful tools I want to mention if you are interested in deep fakes. First is the voice animator, which allows you to animate someone’s face to make it seem like they are talking.
The second is the lip sync tool, which lets you sync someone’s lip movements to an audio.
15.ai was one of the leading factors behind the rising popularity in “audio deep fakes,” and the vast range of voices from popular public figures, celebrities, and movie characters makes FakeYou an excellent alternative.
3. Google Cloud Text to Speech AI
Google has its own AI-powered text to speech tool, utilizing its DeepMind technology, and it’s worth mentioning, especially if you are interested in TTS (text to speech) for business. It’s not free, but it does currently offer new customers $300 in free credits to spend on TTS generation.
The good part about Google Cloud’s TTS tool is that it has over 380 voices in over 50 languages and language variants. That makes it an excellent alternative to 15.ai if you need to use it for an international audience.
There are various AI models to choose from, but you can also train your own model using your own voice recordings, which is a great feature if you want a custom voice for your business.
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4. Resemble.ai
Resemble.ai is the perfect 15.ai alternative for enterprise use. Whether you need to create custom voices to greet customers who call your support line or use AI to generate movie character voices, you can do so with Resemble.ai.
It has many powerful features, allowing you to clone voices and choose from a variety of emotions to customize the generated audio. You can make the voice-over sound happy, sad, angry, etc.
A really useful feature is the ability to edit your audio using text. You can change certain words without having to redo the entire audio.
However, Resemble.ai takes privacy seriously. That’s why to clone a voice, you need to also provide a consent clip in which the voice being cloned explicitly gives consent to having their voice cloned (and the consent clip must match).
Also, it has introduced a unique voice watermarking technology encoded into sounds undetectable to the human ear to protect your voice data and detect deep fakes.
5. Narakeet
Narakeet allows you to generate 20 voice-overs for free, with no registration required.
It has almost 700 voices in over 90 languages and regional dialects. Just choose the character you want to use based on their language and regional accent, input your text, and generate the speech!
By clicking on “More Options,” you can do things like change the speed of the audio and adjust the volume.
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6. Lovo.ai
Lovo.ai has an AI-powered text to speech tool with many characters, including male and female voices, to choose from. There are over 500 voices in over 100 languages, making it a great alternative to 15.ai for users with a global audience.
I like how the voices are categorized based on use cases. Some voices are best suited for education, others for YouTube, corporate training, podcasts, audiobooks, product demos, customer service, and more.
Also, I found the results pretty good. While there is a slight hint of the generated audio being created by AI, the intonation was on point.
7. ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs, founded in 2022, features a wide range of voices in 28 languages and multiple English accents, using advanced AI to check for nuances in text and adjust emotion and intonation accordingly.
You can easily adjust the generated voice-overs using the controls for changing the stability, clarity, style exaggeration, and more.
ElevenLabs also supports voice cloning. To clone your voice, upload samples of your voice – this also works in all 28 languages that ElevenLabs supports.
One thing that makes ElevenLabs such a good alternative to 15.ai is the community aspect. It has a community-driven Voice Library, with AI voices created by the community, which you can filter based on factors such as age and gender.
To incentivize people to upload their voices to the community library, ElevenLabs rewards creators with text character rewards when their voices are used by others.
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8. VEED
VEED has a text to voice AI tool that you can use to create voice-overs, audiobooks, and more. With a wide range of voice profiles to choose from, as well as different emotions to select from.
You can even animate an avatar and feature it in your video along with the generated speech. There are over 50 avatars to pick from, each with its unique facial expressions, background, and personality.
9. Natural Readers
Natural Readers is a simple website that allows you to generate TTS. Start by selecting one of the characters, such as Eric, Brandon, Jane, or Michelle.
Each one is suitable for a specific thing, such as casual listening, general listening, or news articles.
After selecting an AI voice artist, select whether you want to use the tool for business or personal use.
If you are using the tool for free, you can use any of the free voices as much as you want, without any limitations. There are also Premium and Plus voices, but even as a free user, you get to sample them – up to 20 minutes a day for Premium voices and up to five minutes a day for Plus voices.
10. Gesserit
Gesserit is a text to voice generator that supports over 100 voices in over 20 languages, including Portuguese, Spanish, English, German, and others.
It is free to use for up to 1,000 words, after which you will need to buy credits for any additional words. Pricing is very affordable, though, starting at just $14/month for up to 8,000 words, but see the homepage for updated pricing information as it is subject to change.
Formerly known as TikTokTTS, it is very popular among TikTok content creators who don’t want to use their own voices for their videos. However, you can use it for any app, such as YouTube or Instagram.
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11. Murf.ai
Another decent alternative to 15.ai is Murf.ai. It has a wide range of realistic AI voices to choose from, depending on the purpose of your work.
For example, some profiles include customer support, educator, product developer, corporate coach, podcaster, animator, and others.
In fact, there are over 120 voices in over 20 languages, and you can combine any voice you select with images, videos, or music you upload.
On the homepage, you can browse samples of voice-overs created for different apps and companies using Murf.ai, just to get an idea of what the tool is capable of.
While it is not free, it does offer a free trial, allowing you to generate up to 10 minutes of audio for free to test out the studio and creation tools.
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12. Typecast.ai
Typecast.ai Is a good replacement to 15.ai. Not only does it offer AI voice generation, but it also allows you to use avatars and animate them for your videos.
There are over 400 voices to choose from, including from popular personalities and public figures like Joe Biden.
The studio allows you to adjust the intonation, emotion, speed, tempo, pitch, and more, giving you full control over how your generated voice will sound like.
For example, you can choose between four levels for intonations like normal, sad, happy, and angry, adjusting the level of each one until you arrive at the perfect intonation you were looking for.
There are even text to voice templates for purposes such as audiobooks, training, and documentary creation, allowing you to instantly generate the right type of voice-overs without fiddling around too much with the controls.
13. Play.ht
Play.ht is used by companies such as DoorDash and Moderna (according to its website).
There are over 140 languages and accents to choose from, with voices featuring regional accents for languages such as English and Spanish
With over 800 voices altogether, you will not run out of unique voices anytime soon.
Play.ht also supports voice cloning, and it’s extremely accurate, retaining much of the nuances and original accent of the cloned voice. However, it does require you to upload at least an hour of audio for the most accurate results, and it can take a few hours until the voice is fully cloned.
Fortunately, Play.ht moderates every voice cloning request to ensure that consent is provided, so you can’t just clone anyone’s voice without their permission.
Wrapping It Up
So, there you have it – 13 excellent text to voice generators that you can use.
Many of them are free or at least offer a free plan or trial, so you don’t need to pay money.
I recommend trying out a few different tools, as some will be better than others. As AI technology continues improving, we can only expect these tools to get better as well and new tools to emerge on the market.
You can also keep checking if 15.ai has come back online, but since it’s been down for quite some time, I would recommend using an alternative like Uberduck in the meantime.
