Comparison
Why voice AI teams
choose Orthanc
Compare Orthanc against building it yourself, going without memory, or using general-purpose alternatives. See why teams building on Vapi, Retell, and Bland choose Orthanc for persistent voice memory.
No memory
Every call starts from zero. Callers repeat themselves. Your AI feels broken.
Build it yourself
2-3 months of engineering. Vector DB, embeddings, retrieval logic, contradiction handling.
General memory APIs
Not optimized for voice latency. No audio support. Higher latency can break conversations.
Orthanc
Purpose-built for voice. Sub-200ms. Two API calls. 5-minute integration. Production-ready.
Feature Comparison
How Orthanc stacks up against the alternatives for voice AI memory.
| Feature | OrthancVoice-optimized | Without OrthancNo persistent memory | Build it yourselfCustom RAG pipeline | Mem0General AI memory | ZepConversation memory |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Persistent cross-call memory | ~ | ||||
| Automatic fact extraction | |||||
| Contradiction detection | |||||
| Sub-200ms retrieval | N/A | ~ | ~ | ||
| Hybrid search (semantic + keyword) | ~ | ||||
| Per-caller data isolation | |||||
| Audio/transcript ingestion | |||||
| Real-time webhooks | Paid | ||||
| Data export (JSON/CSV) |
Why Voice AI Is Different
Voice applications have unique requirements that general memory solutions don't address.
Latency is make-or-break
In voice, 500ms of silence feels like an eternity. Orthanc retrieves memories in under 200ms — fast enough that callers never notice.
Transcripts are messy
Voice transcripts have filler words, interruptions, and noise. Orthanc's extraction engine handles this — distilling clean facts from messy transcripts.
Multi-call context
Voice interactions span multiple calls over days or weeks. Orthanc builds a growing knowledge base per caller that gets richer over time.
Phone number = identity
In voice AI, caller phone number is the natural user ID. Orthanc's per-user isolation maps perfectly to this pattern.
Contradiction handling
When a caller says "actually, my new number is..." Orthanc updates intelligently. No stale data, no duplicates.
Platform agnostic
Vapi, Retell, Bland, Twilio, custom — Orthanc works with any platform that produces transcripts. Zero vendor lock-in.