I Tested Free ElevenLabs Alternatives, Then Went Back to ElevenLabs

I wanted a free alternative to ElevenLabs for voice cloning, so I tried two open source demos: Chatterbox and Qwen3-TTS.

Reference Voice

Reference Text

Transcript of the reference audio:

That place in the distance, it’s huge and dedicated to Lady Shah. It can only mean one thing. I have a hidden place close to the cloister where night all kids bloom.

Chatterbox TTS Demo

https://huggingface.co/spaces/ResembleAI/Chatterbox

Qwen3-TTS Demo

https://huggingface.co/spaces/Qwen/Qwen3-TTS

Model size: 1.6B parameters, English language.

Target Text

Text to synthesize with the cloned voice:

Now let’s make my mum’s favourite. So three mars bars into the pan. Then we add the tuna and just stir for a bit, just let the chocolate and fish infuse. A sprinkle of olive oil and some tomato ketchup. Now smell that. Oh boy this is going to be incredible.

Why I Went Back to ElevenLabs

I gave up on this since I found the ElevenLabs Reader. It seems better because I can just upload the EPUB from z-lib.gd. I used the ElevenLabs Reader, and right now I’m using it to listen to Fluent Forever. I tried to listen to it on Spotify, but it seems region locked or something. Anyway, if you are looking to listen to books, get them from z-lib.gd and listen to the audiobook using ElevenLabs by uploading the book from z-lib.gd as an EPUB file.