Deploy and Host kittenTTS on Railway

What is kittenTTS?
kittenTTS is an ultra-lightweight, open-source text-to-speech (TTS) model by KittenML. With just 15 million parameters and a footprint under 25MB, it converts written text into high-quality, natural-sounding speech. Designed for maximum efficiency, kittenTTS runs efficiently on devices ranging from powerful servers to Raspberry Pi and edge hardware—all fully offline, with multiple expressive voices and no GPU required.

About Hosting kittenTTS

Hosting kittenTTS involves deploying the model on your preferred infrastructure so it’s available as a service or API. Thanks to its minimal requirements and Docker support, deployment is straightforward on both CPU and GPU servers. Automatic model downloads, a user-friendly web UI, REST API compatibility, and easy scaling make it suitable for personal projects or production systems. Running kittenTTS on Railway means handling everything from audiobook production to real-time accessibility solutions, all with high performance and privacy, as your text never leaves the hosted environment.

Common Use Cases

Edge/IoT Devices: Provide real-time voice feedback for smart home systems and offline devices.
Accessibility Tools: Power screen readers and assistive apps for visually impaired users.
Media Generation: Enable narration for audiobooks, indie games, and content creation without cloud dependencies.

Dependencies for kittenTTS Hosting

Python 3.10+: Required runtime for the server and model scripts.
Docker & Docker Compose: For easy, reproducible deployments—especially on Railway, cloud, or VPS.
eSpeak NG: For text-to-phoneme conversion (install with package manager).
Git: To clone source code from repositories.
(Optional) NVIDIA GPU & CUDA: For hardware acceleration, if desired (CPU-only mode fully supported).
Linux or Windows 10/11: Compatible with common 64-bit OS options.

Deployment Dependencies

Relevant links:

Why Deploy kittenTTS on Railway?

Railway is a singular platform to deploy your infrastructure stack. Railway will host your infrastructure so you don't have to deal with configuration, while allowing you to vertically and horizontally scale it.
By deploying kittenTTS on Railway, you are one step closer to supporting a complete full-stack application with minimal burden. Host your servers, databases, AI agents, and more on Railway.