I built a free CharacterAI that runs locally

Hacker News

CharacterAI has over 20M active users and lets people talk to AI voice clones. I built a local alternative that clones any voice with <10s of audio and can talk fluently in over 10 languages, and runs locally on your Macbook or Mac mini. The voice pipeline currently supports MLX on any M1 through M5 chip. I used Whisper-Turbo for STT, Qwen3.5-9B-4bit for the LLM and Qwen3-TTS-0.6B-4bit for TTS. The repo also has a Websocket Transport to add these voices to devices powered by the ESP32 via secure websockets.

Visit product View on Hacker NewsMar 25, 2026

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Product HuntOn track for Day 1 leaderboard · Strong signals: mac, user · Missing: agents, macos, agent

93%93% predicted probability of success on Product Hunt, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

best fitHighest predicted score across all platforms for this description.

Indie HackersFits the IH revenue-focused audience · Strong signals: supports · Missing: reddit linkedin, podcasting, created

64%64% predicted probability of success on Indie Hackers, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

Hacker NewsStrong engagement from HN community · Strong signals: pipe, io · Missing: https docs, excited, just released

63%63% predicted probability of success on Hacker News, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

nativeThis product was originally launched on this platform.

TrustMRRLess likely to generate early MRR · Strong signals: users · Missing: mobile apps, ios, personal

40%40% predicted probability of success on TrustMRR, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

AppSumoMay struggle as an AppSumo deal · Strong signals: users · Missing: plus, platform, intuitive

29%29% predicted probability of success on AppSumo, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

Acquire.comPre-revenue stage for this audience · Strong signals: active · Missing: arr, mrr, revenue

26%26% predicted probability of success on Acquire.com, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

BetaListMay not resonate with beta-testers · Strong signals: audio · Missing: web3, chat, crypto

3%3% predicted probability of success on BetaList, based on ML models trained on real launch data.

Correct prediction on native model

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