Avaturn Live vs Laguna by Poolside: Features, Pricing & Which Is Better (2026)
A side-by-side comparison of Avaturn Live and Laguna by Poolside — features, pricing, and ideal use cases — to help you decide which AI tool fits your workflow.
Avaturn Live
Avaturn
Lifelike AI avatars for business interactions, with SDKs and examples for web, Unity, Android, and iOS integration.
Key features
- Lifelike Avatar Creation: Provides lifelike, business-oriented avatar experiences intended to act as digital representatives for interactions such as customer-facing conversations and presentations.
- Web Integration (Three.js): Official example project and documentation for loading and rendering Avaturn avatars in web scenes using Three.js, enabling embedding on websites and web apps.
- Unity SDK and WebView Support: Unity integration examples (WebGL and mobile) and an Iframe/WebView-based approach to run and display Avaturn avatars inside Unity projects and games.
- Mobile SDKs and Native iOS Support: Android and iOS example projects, including native iOS integration via WKWebView, to enable avatar experiences in mobile applications.
- Documentation and Examples: Public GitHub repositories and docs (docs.avaturn.me referenced in examples) provide sample code, usage patterns, and integration guides to accelerate development.
- CI/CD and Developer Workflows: Repository examples compatible with GitHub workflows and standard developer pipelines to support automated testing and deployment of avatar integrations.
- Web examples using Three.js to load and render Avaturn avatars (HTML/CSS/JS sample files provided)
- Unity integration examples for WebGL and mobile (supports Unity 2019.3+ up to 2021.3 in provided repo)
- Native iOS integration example using WKWebView
- Android example repository with CI workflows (GitHub Actions referenced)
- IframeController for embedding avatars and changing subdomains within WebViews/iframes
- No-build example for web (serve folder via simple HTTP server to run demos)
- Target platforms: web (Browser/WebGL), Unity (WebGL and mobile), iOS, Android
- Developer documentation referenced at docs.avaturn.me (usage and SDK docs)
Best for
- Customer Support Avatars on Websites: Embed lifelike avatars on company websites to provide interactive customer support, FAQ guidance, or conversational front-line assistance.
- Sales and Virtual Representatives: Use avatars as virtual sales agents for product demos, lead qualification, and guided walkthroughs on web and mobile platforms.
- Unity-based Interactive Experiences: Integrate avatars into Unity games or simulations for NPCs, guides, or interactive presenters using the provided Unity SDK and WebView examples.
- Mobile App Interactions: Add avatar-driven interfaces to Android and iOS apps for personalized onboarding, assistance, or brand engagement using native example projects.
- Virtual Events and Live Presentations: Deploy avatars in virtual event platforms or live-streamed sessions to represent hosts, moderators, or brand ambassadors.
- Training and Simulations: Use avatars to run scenario-based training, role-play, or simulated customer interactions for employee education and assessment.
- Customer support avatars embedded in web portals or mobile apps
- Virtual sales or product demo hosts on websites and apps
- Interactive virtual assistants for enterprise workflows
- Training and simulation with realistic 3D avatars in WebGL or Unity
- In-app concierge or onboarding experiences using embedded WebViews
Laguna by Poolside
Poolside
Poolside's family of open Mixture-of-Experts foundation models for agentic coding — XS.2 runs locally, M.1 reaches 72.5% on SWE-bench Verified.
Key features
- Two Model Sizes: Laguna XS.2 (33B total / 3B active) and Laguna M.1 (225B total / 23B active) target different latency and capability needs.
- Mixture-of-Experts Architecture: Routes each token through a subset of experts for efficiency at large scale.
- Local Deployment: XS.2 is small enough to run on a Mac with 36 GB of RAM via Ollama under an Apache 2.0 license.
- Strong SWE-bench Results: XS.2 hits 68.2% and M.1 reaches 72.5% on SWE-bench Verified.
- Bundled Coding Agent: Ships 'pool,' a lightweight terminal-based coding agent.
- Agent Client Protocol: Includes a dual ACP client-server used internally for agent RL training and evaluation.
Best for
- Local Agentic Coding: Running XS.2 on a laptop for private, offline code generation and editing.
- High-Capability Code Tasks: Using M.1 for harder, long-horizon software engineering work.
- Self-Hosted Deployments: Building on open weights to avoid third-party API dependencies.
- Research & Fine-Tuning: Adapting permissively licensed weights for custom coding workflows.
- Benchmarking: Evaluating agentic coding performance against SWE-bench Verified and Pro.