# Fast Text to Speech - Vietnamese & English (`andrew_babo/piper-tts`) Actor

The fastest, cheapest way to turn text into speech at scale, with Vietnamese and English voices. Renders many times faster than real time, supports long text and exports MP3, WAV or Opus. No rental fee - you pay Apify compute only.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/andrew\_babo/piper-tts.md
- **Developed by:** [Andrew Babo](https://apify.com/andrew_babo) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Fast Text to Speech — Vietnamese & English Voice Generator

The fastest, cheapest way to turn text into speech at scale. Send text, get an audio file back in a fraction of a second — ideal when you need thousands of clips instead of one perfect one.

**Good for:** bulk voiceovers, notifications and alerts, IVR and phone menus, accessibility read-aloud, quick previews before a final studio render, high-volume automation.

### Quick start

```json
{
  "text": "Xin chào, đây là giọng đọc tự động.",
  "voice": "vi_VN-vais1000-medium",
  "format": "mp3"
}
```

### What you get

- **Vietnamese** and **English (US)** voices
- **Many times faster than real time** — a one-minute script renders in a couple of seconds
- **Lowest cost per clip** of all the voice Actors in this collection
- **Long text supported** — split and joined automatically
- **MP3, WAV or Opus** output
- Warm mode for instant repeat requests

### Input

| Field | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| `text` | required | The text you want spoken |
| `voice` | `vi_VN-vais1000-medium` | Vietnamese or one of two English voices |
| `speed` | `1.0` | `0.5` = slower, `1.5` = faster |
| `format` | `wav` | `wav`, `mp3` or `opus` |

### Output

One dataset row per run with the audio file URL, duration and processing time.

### Pricing

No rental fee — you only pay Apify compute, which is tiny for this Actor.

### Notes

This voice is clear and extremely fast, but flatter than the expressive Actors. If you need emotional, human-like delivery, use the Vietnamese Text to Speech (voice cloning) or the AI Voice Cloning Actor instead.

# Actor input Schema

## `text` (type: `string`):

Required text to synthesize. Piper automatically splits long text at sentence boundaries. Maximum 20,000 characters.

## `voice` (type: `string`):

Which speaker voice to use for the generated audio.

## `speed` (type: `string`):

1.0 = normal. Applied as Piper length\_scale.

## `format` (type: `string`):

Container/codec of the returned audio file.

## `chunk_chars` (type: `integer`):

Long text is split into chunks of about this many characters at sentence boundaries.

## `chunk_parallel` (type: `integer`):

How many chunks to synthesize at the same time. 0 lets the Actor pick based on available CPU cores.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "text": "Xin chào, đây là Piper chạy trên Apify.",
  "voice": "vi_VN-vais1000-medium",
  "speed": "1.0",
  "format": "wav",
  "chunk_chars": 600,
  "chunk_parallel": 0
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `audio` (type: `string`):

Generated audio record stored in the run's key-value store (audio.wav / audio.mp3 / audio.ogg).

## `metrics` (type: `string`):

Dataset rows with engine, duration, synthesis time, RTF, peak RAM and the audio URL.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "text": "Xin chào, đây là Piper chạy trên Apify."
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("andrew_babo/piper-tts").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "text": "Xin chào, đây là Piper chạy trên Apify." }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("andrew_babo/piper-tts").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "text": "Xin chào, đây là Piper chạy trên Apify."
}' |
apify call andrew_babo/piper-tts --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,andrew_babo/piper-tts"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/2Lw1pHhyX8Cwto9Ve/builds/YrWjSl1RrzygQhlde/openapi.json