so i yes, espeak exists and still sounds terrible even worse than picoTTS (last update 4 yrs ago?). so what else is there? i look at mimic3 and it says they are dead and one should go for piper here: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic3 the link to piper followed I get: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper "This repository was archived by the owner on Oct 6, 2025. It is now read-only. "
ok, so coqui? https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS no update in over 12 months…how bad can it be? https://coqui.ai/ …great it is a page for gambling now.
so, what are you using? gTTS is not offline.


thanks
Happy to help.
The docker setup is probably less maintenance than a straight install, but your usecase might need the bare install. there’s also Home Assistant that can add Piper as an Addon (which is a docker container inside the HassOS docker container). Also the Hass install will let you add faster-Whisper and Openwakeword for a full voice assistant that autoconnects via the Wyoming protocol.