Alternatives to Balabolka
A free Windows program that reads text aloud with installed voices and saves it as audio files. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Balabolka
A free Windows program that reads text aloud with installed voices and saves it as audio files.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Balabolka.
NaturalReader
A text-to-speech app that reads documents, PDFs, web pages and scanned text aloud with AI voices.
NaturalReader is a freemium reader on web, mobile and Chrome with AI voices and scanned text support, replacing installed Windows voices with cloud voices behind paid plans.
Speechify
A text-to-speech and voice typing app that reads documents, PDFs and web pages aloud.
Speechify reads documents and web pages on web, desktop, mobile and browser extensions, adding summaries and voice typing, but it is closed source and cloud-based.
Voice Dream Reader
A text-to-speech reading app that turns PDFs, ebooks, documents and web pages into audio.
Voice Dream Reader is a paid reading app for macOS and iOS that opens PDFs, EPUBs and Office files with VoiceOver and braille display support and offline listening.
Speech Note
A Linux app for offline speech-to-text, text-to-speech and machine translation using local models.
Speech Note is a free MPL-2.0 Linux app that reads text aloud offline with engines such as Piper and Kokoro, and also offers dictation and translation.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Balabolka as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
TTSMaker
A free online text-to-speech tool with over 600 voices in more than 100 languages.
Balabolka is a free Windows program that saves text as audio files offline using installed system voices, so quality depends on those engines.
Voicemaker
An online text-to-speech converter with many AI voices, adjustable pauses and audio export.
Balabolka is a free Windows program that saves text as audio offline using installed system voices, so quality depends on those speech engines.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Piper
A fast neural text-to-speech engine that runs locally, even on modest hardware like a Raspberry Pi.
RHVoice
A free, open-source speech synthesizer for Russian and other languages, used with screen readers and desktops.
Narakeet
An online text-to-speech tool that makes voiceovers, audio files and narrated videos from text and slides.
Kokoro
Small, fast open-weight text-to-speech model you can run locally.
