_FastKoko

Dockerized FastAPI wrapper for Kokoro-82M text-to-speech model

• Multi-language support (English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese)
• OpenAI-compatible Speech endpoint, NVIDIA GPU accelerated or CPU inference with PyTorch
• ONNX support coming soon, see v0.1.5 and earlier for legacy ONNX support in the interim
• Debug endpoints for monitoring system stats, integrated web UI on localhost:8880/web
• Phoneme-based audio generation, phoneme generation
• (new) Per-word timestamped caption generation
• (new) Voice mixing with weighted combinations

Get Started

Quickest Start (docker run)

Pre built images are available to run, with arm/multi-arch support, and baked in models Refer to the core/config.py file for a full list of variables which can be managed via the environment

docker run -p 8880:8880 ghcr.io/remsky/kokoro-fastapi-cpu:v0.2.0 # CPU, or:
docker run --gpus all -p 8880:8880 ghcr.io/remsky/kokoro-fastapi-gpu:v0.2.0 #NVIDIA GPU

Quick Start (docker compose)

1. Install prerequisites, and start the service using Docker Compose (Full setup including UI):
   • Install Docker
   • Clone the repository:

     git clone https://github.com/remsky/Kokoro-FastAPI.git
     cd Kokoro-FastAPI
     
     cd docker/gpu  # For GPU support
     # or cd docker/cpu  # For CPU support
     docker compose up --build
     
     # Models will auto-download, but if needed you can manually download:
     python docker/scripts/download_model.py --output api/src/models/v1_0
     
     # Or run directly via UV:
     ./start-gpu.sh  # For GPU support
     ./start-cpu.sh  # For CPU support

Direct Run (via uv)

1. Install prerequisites ():

   • Install astral-uv

   • Clone the repository:

     git clone https://github.com/remsky/Kokoro-FastAPI.git
     cd Kokoro-FastAPI
     
     # if you are missing any models, run:
     # python ../scripts/download_model.py --type pth  # for GPU
     # python ../scripts/download_model.py --type onnx # for CPU

     Start directly via UV (with hot-reload)

     ./start-cpu.sh OR
     ./start-gpu.sh 

Up and Running?

Run locally as an OpenAI-Compatible Speech Endpoint

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8880/v1", api_key="not-needed"
)

with client.audio.speech.with_streaming_response.create(
    model="kokoro",
    voice="af_sky+af_bella", #single or multiple voicepack combo
    input="Hello world!"
  ) as response:
      response.stream_to_file("output.mp3")

• The API will be available at http://localhost:8880

• API Documentation: http://localhost:8880/docs

• Web Interface: http://localhost:8880/web

Features

OpenAI-Compatible Speech Endpoint

# Using OpenAI's Python library
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:8880/v1", api_key="not-needed")
response = client.audio.speech.create(
    model="kokoro",  
    voice="af_bella+af_sky", # see /api/src/core/openai_mappings.json to customize
    input="Hello world!",
    response_format="mp3"
)

response.stream_to_file("output.mp3")

Or Via Requests:

import requests


response = requests.get("http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/voices")
voices = response.json()["voices"]

# Generate audio
response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/speech",
    json={
        "model": "kokoro",  
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "af_bella",
        "response_format": "mp3",  # Supported: mp3, wav, opus, flac
        "speed": 1.0
    }
)

# Save audio
with open("output.mp3", "wb") as f:
    f.write(response.content)

Quick tests (run from another terminal):

python examples/assorted_checks/test_openai/test_openai_tts.py # Test OpenAI Compatibility
python examples/assorted_checks/test_voices/test_all_voices.py # Test all available voices

Voice Combination

• Weighted voice combinations using ratios (e.g., "af_bella(2)+af_heart(1)" for 67%/33% mix)
• Ratios are automatically normalized to sum to 100%
• Available through any endpoint by adding weights in parentheses
• Saves generated voicepacks for future use

Combine voices and generate audio:

import requests
response = requests.get("http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/voices")
voices = response.json()["voices"]

# Example 1: Simple voice combination (50%/50% mix)
response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/speech",
    json={
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "af_bella+af_sky",  # Equal weights
        "response_format": "mp3"
    }
)

# Example 2: Weighted voice combination (67%/33% mix)
response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/speech",
    json={
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "af_bella(2)+af_sky(1)",  # 2:1 ratio = 67%/33%
        "response_format": "mp3"
    }
)

# Example 3: Download combined voice as .pt file
response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/voices/combine",
    json="af_bella(2)+af_sky(1)"  # 2:1 ratio = 67%/33%
)

# Save the .pt file
with open("combined_voice.pt", "wb") as f:
    f.write(response.content)

# Use the downloaded voice file
response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/speech",
    json={
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "combined_voice",  # Use the saved voice file
        "response_format": "mp3"
    }
)

Multiple Output Audio Formats

• mp3
• wav
• opus
• flac
• aac
• pcm

Streaming Support

# OpenAI-compatible streaming
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8880/v1", api_key="not-needed")

# Stream to file
with client.audio.speech.with_streaming_response.create(
    model="kokoro",
    voice="af_bella",
    input="Hello world!"
) as response:
    response.stream_to_file("output.mp3")

# Stream to speakers (requires PyAudio)
import pyaudio
player = pyaudio.PyAudio().open(
    format=pyaudio.paInt16, 
    channels=1, 
    rate=24000, 
    output=True
)

with client.audio.speech.with_streaming_response.create(
    model="kokoro",
    voice="af_bella",
    response_format="pcm",
    input="Hello world!"
) as response:
    for chunk in response.iter_bytes(chunk_size=1024):
        player.write(chunk)

Or via requests:

import requests

response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/v1/audio/speech",
    json={
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "af_bella",
        "response_format": "pcm"
    },
    stream=True
)

for chunk in response.iter_content(chunk_size=1024):
    if chunk:
        # Process streaming chunks
        pass

Key Streaming Metrics:

• First token latency @ chunksize
  • ~300ms (GPU) @ 400
  • ~3500ms (CPU) @ 200 (older i7)
  • ~<1s (CPU) @ 200 (M3 Pro)
• Adjustable chunking settings for real-time playback

Note: Artifacts in intonation can increase with smaller chunks

Processing Details

Performance Benchmarks

Benchmarking was performed on generation via the local API using text lengths up to feature-length books (~1.5 hours output), measuring processing time and realtime factor. Tests were run on:

• Windows 11 Home w/ WSL2
• NVIDIA 4060Ti 16gb GPU @ CUDA 12.1
• 11th Gen i7-11700 @ 2.5GHz
• 64gb RAM
• WAV native output
• H.G. Wells - The Time Machine (full text)

Key Performance Metrics:

• Realtime Speed: Ranges between 35x-100x (generation time to output audio length)
• Average Processing Rate: 137.67 tokens/second (cl100k_base)

GPU Vs. CPU

# GPU: Requires NVIDIA GPU with CUDA 12.1 support (~35x-100x realtime speed)
cd docker/gpu
docker compose up --build

# CPU: PyTorch CPU inference
cd docker/cpu
docker compose up --build

Note: Overall speed may have reduced somewhat with the structural changes to accomodate streaming. Looking into it

Natural Boundary Detection

• Automatically splits and stitches at sentence boundaries
• Helps to reduce artifacts and allow long form processing as the base model is only currently configured for approximately 30s output

The model is capable of processing up to a 510 phonemized token chunk at a time, however, this can often lead to 'rushed' speech or other artifacts. An additional layer of chunking is applied in the server, that creates flexible chunks with a TARGET_MIN_TOKENS , TARGET_MAX_TOKENS, and ABSOLUTE_MAX_TOKENS which are configurable via environment variables, and set to 175, 250, 450 by default

Timestamped Captions & Phonemes

Generate audio with word-level timestamps:

import requests
import json

response = requests.post(
    "http://localhost:8880/dev/captioned_speech",
    json={
        "model": "kokoro",
        "input": "Hello world!",
        "voice": "af_bella",
        "speed": 1.0,
        "response_format": "wav"
    }
)

# Get timestamps from header
timestamps = json.loads(response.headers['X-Word-Timestamps'])
print("Word-level timestamps:")
for ts in timestamps:
    print(f"{ts['word']}: {ts['start_time']:.3f}s - {ts['end_time']:.3f}s")

# Save audio
with open("output.wav", "wb") as f:
    f.write(response.content)

Phoneme & Token Routes

Convert text to phonemes and/or generate audio directly from phonemes:

import requests

def get_phonemes(text: str, language: str = "a"):
    """Get phonemes and tokens for input text"""
    response = requests.post(
        "http://localhost:8880/dev/phonemize",
        json={"text": text, "language": language}  # "a" for American English
    )
    response.raise_for_status()
    result = response.json()
    return result["phonemes"], result["tokens"]

def generate_audio_from_phonemes(phonemes: str, voice: str = "af_bella"):
    """Generate audio from phonemes"""
    response = requests.post(
        "http://localhost:8880/dev/generate_from_phonemes",
        json={"phonemes": phonemes, "voice": voice},
        headers={"Accept": "audio/wav"}
    )
    if response.status_code != 200:
        print(f"Error: {response.text}")
        return None
    return response.content

# Example usage
text = "Hello world!"
try:
    # Convert text to phonemes
    phonemes, tokens = get_phonemes(text)
    print(f"Phonemes: {phonemes}")  # e.g. ðɪs ɪz ˈoʊnli ɐ tˈɛst
    print(f"Tokens: {tokens}")      # Token IDs including start/end tokens

    # Generate and save audio
    if audio_bytes := generate_audio_from_phonemes(phonemes):
        with open("speech.wav", "wb") as f:
            f.write(audio_bytes)
        print(f"Generated {len(audio_bytes)} bytes of audio")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Error: {e}")

See examples/phoneme_examples/generate_phonemes.py for a sample script.

Debug Endpoints

Monitor system state and resource usage with these endpoints:

• /debug/threads - Get thread information and stack traces
• /debug/storage - Monitor temp file and output directory usage
• /debug/system - Get system information (CPU, memory, GPU)
• /debug/session_pools - View ONNX session and CUDA stream status

Useful for debugging resource exhaustion or performance issues.

Known Issues

Versioning & Development

I'm doing what I can to keep things stable, but we are on an early and rapid set of build cycles here. If you run into trouble, you may have to roll back a version on the release tags if something comes up, or build up from source and/or troubleshoot + submit a PR. Will leave the branch up here for the last known stable points:

v0.1.4 v0.0.5post1

Free and open source is a community effort, and I love working on this project, though there's only really so many hours in a day. If you'd like to support the work, feel free to open a PR, buy me a coffee, or report any bugs/features/etc you find during use.

Linux GPU Permissions

Some Linux users may encounter GPU permission issues when running as non-root. Can't guarantee anything, but here are some common solutions, consider your security requirements carefully

Option 1: Container Groups (Likely the best option)

services:
  kokoro-tts:
    # ... existing config ...
    group_add:
      - "video"
      - "render"

Option 2: Host System Groups

services:
  kokoro-tts:
    # ... existing config ...
    user: "${UID}:${GID}"
    group_add:
      - "video"

Note: May require adding host user to groups: sudo usermod -aG docker,video $USER and system restart.

Option 3: Device Permissions (Use with caution)

services:
  kokoro-tts:
    # ... existing config ...
    devices:
      - /dev/nvidia0:/dev/nvidia0
      - /dev/nvidiactl:/dev/nvidiactl
      - /dev/nvidia-uvm:/dev/nvidia-uvm

⚠️ Warning: Reduces system security. Use only in development environments.

Prerequisites: NVIDIA GPU, drivers, and container toolkit must be properly configured.

Visit NVIDIA Container Toolkit installation for more detailed information

Model and License

Model

This API uses the Kokoro-82M model from HuggingFace.

Visit the model page for more details about training, architecture, and capabilities. I have no affiliation with any of their work, and produced this wrapper for ease of use and personal projects.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see below for details:

• The Kokoro model weights are licensed under Apache 2.0 (see model page)
• The FastAPI wrapper code in this repository is licensed under Apache 2.0 to match
• The inference code adapted from StyleTTS2 is MIT licensed

The full Apache 2.0 license text can be found at: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0