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Text-to-Speech Tools for Education: Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker

Not sure how to pick between Speechify and ReadSpeaker text to speech for your education needs? Learn which is best for your students here.

August 26, 2024 by Amy Foxwell
A student with a tablet using text-to-speech tools for education: Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker

Since its 2017 debut, text-to-speech (TTS) app Speechify has risen high in the rankings of both iOS and Android app stores. By doing so, it’s become more visible to educators at every level.

But how does the Speechify app stack up against an established TTS leader that specializes in education TTS? In other words, how does Speechify compare to ReadSpeaker for Education?

ReadSpeaker has been at the forefront of TTS technology for over 25 years, and the team understands the value of TTS for education. That’s why ReadSpeaker offers a series of plug-ins and tools specifically for educators and learners.

Rather than a single mobile app, ReadSpeaker provides a complete TTS solution for every learning scenario. That includes TTS integrations with learning management systems (LMSs), assessment platforms, content-creation apps, and proctoring solutions. It also includes reading, writing, and studying tools that work in tandem with lifelike TTS.

Speechify and ReadSpeaker for Education do bring some common capabilities to the education market:

✓ Both TTS providers offer text-to-speech software for a broad range of scholastic use cases: digital accessibility, alternative formats for learning materials, automated textbook narration, and more.

✓ Both have high-quality, natural-sounding voices that leverage the power of artificial intelligence—and that students enjoy hearing.

✓ Both support many different languages and offer competitive pricing.

✓ Both enhance TTS with student-friendly functionality like audio file downloads and reading speed control.

One serious difference, however, is that Speechify’s focus is on a TTS app for general consumer audiences. ReadSpeaker builds comprehensive TTS solutions—much more than a mobile app—for educational institutions and their students.

In other words, only ReadSpeaker supports TTS all the time, for every student, on any device, and in any learning context.

Here’s how that difference plays out in the functionality of the Speechify text-to-speech app and ReadSpeaker’s many TTS solutions for education.

ReadSpeaker Vs. Speechify in Education: Contrasting TTS Capabilities

Speechify
ReadSpeaker

✓ Works via user-facing consumer apps and requires an internet connection

✓ Lifelike, natural-sounding voices in 30+ languages

✓ User-friendly interface

✓ Enhances TTS with options to adjust voice selection, font size, and reading speed, plus text highlighting

✓ Best suited for personal use as a productivity/efficiency tool

✓ Integrates with Canvas, Gmail, Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, Microsoft One Drive

✓ Offers an API for content creators who want to make Speechify available for site visitors

✓ OCR component allows audio generation from images

✓ Cloud-based TTS limits user control over data security

✓ Automatically collects user information, including location, log, usage, and device data

✓ Online and offline deployment options; can run on your school IT office’s server or desktops, or be embedded into learning devices of any size

✓ High-quality, natural-sounding voices in 50+ languages, from Arabic to isiZulu.

✓ Easy to use across any content students access

✓ Enhances TTS with the same tools as Speechify, PLUS additional tools that support learning needs including dictionary lookup, translation, simple view, and more

✓ Works well for students, families, educators, and administrators to improve accessibility

✓ Integrates deeply with LMS platforms, web content, proctoring software and cloud-based education platforms, including Blackboard, Brightspace by D2L, Canvas, CourseArc, Ilias, ItsLearning, Honorlock, Learnosity, Moodle, aNewSpring, Open Edx, OpenLMS, Proctorio, Quantum, Respondus, Schoology, SoftChalk, Silverchair, Teelen, TestVision, and more

✓ OCR technology converts images, legacy documents, and scans into more accessible text and audio

✓ Designed for students, educators, and instructional designers who want to create an accessible, speech-enabled platform

✓ Reliable tech and linguistic support for the lifetime of your product

✓ On-premise, API, and server-based solutions available for heightened institutional security

✓ Local API (LAPI) support for TTS in extremely secure settings with no connection to the open internet

✓ No user data collection, in compliance with GDPR, FERPA, CIPA, and student data privacy policies

Speechify operates on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. Its streaming text to speech runs through a variety of online AI text-to-speech apps, including:

  • Speechify Chrome Extension
  • Speechify iOS App
  • Speechify Android App
  • Speechify Microsoft Edge Add-On
  • Speechify Text to Speech Web App
  • Speechify AI Studio

Note that these apps may integrate with web browsers—but they don’t work seamlessly within your LMS. That means students have to open extra apps to use TTS, which creates a barrier known to depress usage of helpful learning tools.

Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker: Speechify interface

Education-software developers can also get Speechify TTS through an API, and the company offers special packages for educators. You can run Speechify on Windows or Mac, and on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device. Their voices are comparable to those offered by Amazon Polly TTS.

Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker: ReadSpeaker on a smartphone

User-facing consumer apps are the core of Speechify’s offerings, however, and all their cloud-based TTS solutions require an internet connection. With Speechify’s premium version, you can download speech files. That’s the only way students can use TTS offline with Speechify.

ReadSpeaker has a lot more deployment options—both online and off. Streaming TTS products from ReadSpeaker include:

Unlike Speechify, ReadSpeaker solutions can also run on your school’s private server. They can run on an educator, administrator, or student’s desktop. Instructional designers can even embed ReadSpeaker TTS into original educational devices.

ReadSpeaker’s on-premise solutions are the gold standard in data security; after all, attackers have a hard time accessing systems that don’t connect with the open internet!

This advanced security helps those companies that need to keep sensitive training materials ring-fenced, or to protect learner data, bringing ReadSpeaker tools into compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), and the U.S. Department of Education’s student privacy policies.

With ReadSpeaker, schools can also run TTS on their private servers; within the institution’s IVR systems; in custom educational applications; on school desktops; or on teaching devices. This is possible thanks to offline ReadSpeaker solutions including:

ReadSpeaker also offers real-time text-to-speech solutions for educational game developers. These TTS game-engine integrations help developers make more accessible educational games and digital training systems in leading platforms like Unity and Unreal Engine.

Other ReadSpeaker integration options include an API that brings TTS to mobile apps and other digital environments and browser extensions with additional features. With ReadSpeaker, you can use the same lifelike TTS voices across all these products and integrations for consistent performance in different applications.

Speechify Voice Cloning Vs. ReadSpeaker Custom AI Voices for Educators

Custom AI voices allow educators to create new voices for their learning content. In the field of corporate learning, a custom voice supports audio branding in training materials.

Both Speechify and ReadSpeaker offer such custom TTS voices. But they arrive at these solutions in very different ways.

  • Speechify provides a self-service voice-cloning app. The app records the user speaking, then generates a synthetic version of that speaker’s voice.
  • ReadSpeaker creates custom TTS voices to meet any need. Our team of speech scientists and AI engineers use special recordings from trained actors (or a chosen representative) to train an original AI voice model.

Speechify’s voice-cloning app works quickly. It can clone a voice with as little as 30 seconds of data.

But in an AI model, limited data leads to limited quality. ReadSpeaker’s white-glove approach ensures a lifelike final product. It also gives corporate learning professionals more control over their (literal) brand voice. Rather than simply cloning a speaker, ReadSpeaker can create a composite voice that expresses brand personality in precise detail.

There are also ethical concerns surrounding self-service voice cloning software. Few safeguards prevent users from using Speechify’s app to clone a voice without the speaker’s permission.

At ReadSpeaker, we generate our own training data under contract with all stakeholders. We build AI ethics into our business model, ensuring users get great TTS voices that won’t create legal or reputational risk—an essential consideration for schools and corporate training departments alike.

ReadSpeaker has a long history of specialization in TTS solutions for education and corporate learning. As we’ve mentioned, we offer seamless TTS integrations with all major learning management systems. This is a key point of comparison with Speechify, which, rather than providing controls within the LMS, introduces yet another app students have to open.

Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker: ReadSpeaker interface

Opening apps—or even new browser tabs—can be a stumbling block for learners with dyslexia, learning disabilities, visual impairments, or unfamiliarity with the language. ReadSpeaker’s LMS compatibility simplifies student access to TTS for greater ease of use.

Finally, ReadSpeaker offers ongoing linguist support to ensure perfect pronunciation—even for the specialized vocabulary of a science course. Speechify doesn’t match this support. Let’s take a closer look at this distinction.

Pronouncing Learning Content: Speechify Vs. ReadSpeaker

Speechify and Pronunciation Accuracy

No text-to-speech engine can pronounce everything perfectly, every time. There are simply too many variables in language: homographs, proper nouns, technical jargon, acronyms, etc.

That means TTS engines need ways to update mispronounced terms as they arise.

Speechify’s only apparent means of correcting mispronunciations is for users to retype words phonetically, using Wikipedia’s pronunciation respelling key.

This is an ad hoc approach that doesn’t really fix the problem.

ReadSpeaker and Pronunciation Accuracy

ReadSpeaker doesn’t just offer a TTS app; we build ongoing partnerships with educators. Pronunciation assistance is a big part of that relationship.

At ReadSpeaker, we provide custom pronunciation dictionaries. Add a term and the TTS engine will pronounce it perfectly forever. In other words, you fix the problem once, and it stays fixed.

If you run into any trouble, our speech scientists will be happy to help. The ReadSpeaker team ensures perfect pronunciation for any use case, including highly technical subjects rife with complex terminology.

How Educators Choose Between ReadSpeaker for Education and Speechify

ReadSpeaker for Education and Speechify have a lot of benefits in common. They both offer a browser extension that reads websites aloud, enhancing the learner’s reading experience considerably. They both offer a document reader that can handle ePub, PDF files, and Google Docs.

They both have hundreds of voice options and very high speech quality. They both offer a student-friendly interface for TTS control. Not surprisingly, you’re likely to find either topping a “best text-to-speech” list.

The bottom line is this:

If you’re looking for a TTS mobile app to audio-enable social media pages, online tutorials, or other casual text, Speechify might be the right choice. It offers a limited free version as well as paid plans. (Some user reviews report charges during the free trial, difficulty canceling the service, and dissatisfaction with high prices.)

Choose ReadSpeaker if you represent an educational institution and wish to bring TTS to your LMS, website, e-learning course, assessments, STEM content, documents, serious game, or other learning needs.

Looking for top-quality, feature-rich text to speech that works for any course content, any device, and any learning platform?

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