EmotiVoice 2026: The Open Source Chinese TTS That Adds Real Emotion (8.5k Stars)

Chinese TTS voices sound robotic, especially for storytelling. EmotiVoice from NetEase Youdao generates Mandarin speech with controllable emotion - for free.

## EmotiVoice: Mandarin TTS With Feelings EmotiVoice, open-sourced by NetEase Youdao (8,507 GitHub stars as of August 2026), is a text-to-speech system focused on one thing most Chinese TTS models neglect: emotion. It lets you specify an emotion label - happy, sad, angry, surprised, fearful, disgusted, neutral - and control emotional intensity, producing Mandarin speech that actually sounds expressive instead of flat. ## Why Emotion Matters for TTS Audiobooks, game characters, dubbing, and voice assistants all fail when delivery is monotone. Most open-source Chinese TTS (like the older chinese TTS models in Coqui) reads text correctly but with a single flat tone. EmotiVoice's dual approach - a base speech model plus an emotion control module - makes expressive output a parameter you set, not a lucky accident. ## How to Use It ```bash git clone https://github.com/netease-youdao/EmotiVoice git submodule update --init --recursive # run the web demo and type text + choose emotion ``` It ships with a Gradio web interface and a command-line synthesis script. Model weights are large (several GB) but inference runs on a single consumer GPU, and CPU inference works for short clips. ## The Practical Comparison | Need | Tool | |------|------| | Expressive Mandarin with emotion control | EmotiVoice | | English + Chinese general TTS | Edge-TTS / Azure / ElevenLabs | | Voice cloning | OpenVoice / RVC | | Fastest Chinese TTS (less emotion) | Native cloud APIs | ## Limitations to Know - Long text synthesis can lose emotional consistency - keep paragraphs short. - Some emotions (surprised, fearful) are less natural than happy/sad in early versions. - It is primarily Mandarin; English support exists but is not the focus. ## FAQ **Is EmotiVoice free?** Yes, open source (Apache-2.0 style license per the repo); you pay for compute. **Does it support voice cloning?** No - that is a different tool (see OpenVoice). **Can I use it commercially?** Yes, for your own generated audio; verify the license terms in the repo. **How much VRAM do I need?** Around 8-12GB for the full model; quantized versions run on less.