Vexa

What is Vexa?

Vexa is an open-source, self-hostable API for real-time meeting transcription. It automatically joins Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom meetings, captures audio, and provides real-time transcriptions via REST API and WebSocket.

At a glance

Who it's for

Build on Top. In Hours, Not Months

Build powerful meeting assistants (like Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom) for your startup, internal use, or custom integrations.

The Vexa API provides powerful abstractions and a clear separation of concerns, enabling you to build sophisticated applications on top with a safe and enjoyable coding experience.

🛡️ Built for Data Sovereignty

Vexa is open-source and self-hostable — ideal for regulated industries and teams that cannot compromise on privacy.

Modular architecture scales from edge devices to millions of users. You choose what to self-host and what to use as a service.

You control everything:

1. Full self-hosting
Run Vexa, database, and transcription service entirely on your infrastructure
For regulated industries like fintech, medical, etc.

2. GPU-free self-hosting
Self-host Vexa, but plug into external transcription service
Perfect privacy with minimal DevOps

3. Fully hosted service
At vexa.ai — just grab API key
Ready to integrate

🎉 What's new in v0.9 (pre-release)

• Zoom: initial Zoom Meeting SDK support (requires Zoom app setup/approval; see docs)

• Recordings: persist recording artifacts to S3-compatible storage (or local)

• Post-meeting playback: stream recordings via /recordings/.../raw with Range seeking (206) + Content-Disposition: inline

• Delete semantics: deleting a meeting also purges recording objects/artifacts (best-effort) before anonymizing the meeting

• Interactive Bots API: live controls for speak/chat/screen/avatar during active meetings

• MCP integration docs: end-to-end guide for connecting AI agents to Vexa tools

See full release notes: https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa/releases

Quickstart

Option 1: Hosted (Fastest)

Just grab your API key at https://vexa.ai/dashboard/api-keys and start using the service immediately.

Option 2: Vexa Lite - For Users (Recommended for Production)

Self-hosted, multiuser service for teams. Run as a single Docker container for easy deployment.

Vexa Lite is a single-container deployment perfect for teams who want:

• Self-hosted multiuser service - Multiple users, API tokens, and team management

• Quick deployment on any platform - Single container, easy to deploy

• No GPU required - Transcription runs externally

• Choose your frontend - Pick from open-source user interfaces like Vexa Dashboard

• Production-ready - Stateless, scalable, serverless-friendly

Quick start:

docker run -d \
  --name vexa \
  -p 8056:8056 \
  -e DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:pass@host/vexa" \
  -e ADMIN_API_TOKEN="your-admin-token" \
  -e TRANSCRIBER_URL="https://transcription.service" \
  -e TRANSCRIBER_API_KEY="transcriber-token" \
  vexaai/vexa-lite:latest

Deployment options:

• 🚀 One-click platform deployments: vexa-lite-deploy repository

  • ✅ Fly.io - Implemented

  • 🚧 Railway, Render, etc. - To be added (contribute by adding your platform of choice!)

• 📖 Complete setup guide: Vexa Lite Deployment Guide - Environment variables, storage, TTS, and all configuration options

• 🎨 Frontend options: Choose from open-source user interfaces like Vexa Dashboard

Option 3: Docker Compose - For Development

Full stack deployment with all services. Perfect for development and testing.

All services are saved in docker-compose.yml and wrapped in a Makefile for convenience:

git clone https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa.git
cd vexa
make all                         # Default: remote transcription (GPU-free)

What make all does:

• Builds all Docker images

• Spins up all containers (API, bots, transcription services, database)

• Runs database migrations

• Starts a simple test to verify everything works

• Full guide: Deployment Guide

Recording storage (local and cloud)

Recording is implemented and supports local filesystem, MinIO, and cloud S3-compatible backends.

See Recording Storage for:

• Storage backends and environment variables (STORAGE_BACKEND)

• Docker Compose / Lite / Kubernetes deployment notes

• Browser playback details (/recordings/{recording_id}/media/{media_file_id}/raw, Range/206, Content-Disposition: inline)

Option 4: Hashicorp Nomad, Kubernetes, OpenShift

For enterprise orchestration platforms, contact vexa.ai

1. Send bot to meeting:

Set API_BASE to your deployment:

• Hosted: https://api.cloud.vexa.ai

• Self-hosted Lite: http://localhost:8056

• Self-hosted full stack (default): http://localhost:8056

export API_BASE="http://localhost:8056"

Request a bot for Microsoft Teams

curl -X POST "$API_BASE/bots" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "platform": "teams",
    "native_meeting_id": "<NUMERIC_MEETING_ID>",
    "passcode": "<MEETING_PASSCODE>"
  }'

Or request a bot for Google Meet

curl -X POST "$API_BASE/bots" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "platform": "google_meet",
    "native_meeting_id": "abc-defg-hij"
  }'

Or request a bot for Zoom

# Caveat: Zoom Meeting SDK apps typically require Marketplace approval to join other users' meetings.
# Before approval, expect you can reliably join only meetings created by you (the authorizing account).
#
# From URL: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/YOUR_MEETING_ID?pwd=YOUR_PWD
# Extract meeting ID and optional passcode separately.
curl -X POST "$API_BASE/bots" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-API-Key: <API_KEY>" \
  -d '{
    "platform": "zoom",
    "native_meeting_id": "YOUR_MEETING_ID",
    "passcode": "YOUR_PWD",
    "recording_enabled": true,
    "transcribe_enabled": true,
    "transcription_tier": "realtime"
  }'

2. Get transcripts:

Get transcripts over REST

curl -H "X-API-Key: <API_KEY>" \
  "$API_BASE/transcripts/<platform>/<native_meeting_id>"

For real-time streaming (sub‑second), see the WebSocket guide. For full REST details, see the User API Guide.

Note: Meeting IDs are user-provided (Google Meet code like xxx-xxxx-xxx or Teams numeric ID and passcode). Vexa does not generate meeting IDs.

Who Vexa is for

• Enterprises (self-host): Data sovereignty and control on your infra

• Teams using hosted API: Fastest path from meeting to transcript

• n8n/indie builders: Low-code automations powered by real-time transcripts

  • Tutorial: https://vexa.ai/blog/google-meet-transcription-n8n-workflow

Roadmap

For the up-to-date roadmap and priorities, see GitHub Issues and Milestones. Issues are grouped by milestones to show what's coming next, in what order, and what's currently highest priority.

• Issues: https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa/issues

• Milestones: https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa/milestones

For discussion/support, join our Discord.

Architecture

• api-gateway: Routes API requests to appropriate services

• mcp: Provides MCP-capable agents with Vexa as a toolkit

• bot-manager: Handles bot lifecycle management

• vexa-bot: The bot that joins meetings and captures audio

• WhisperLive: Real-time audio transcription service (uses transcription-service as backend in remote mode)

• transcription-service: Basic transcription service (WhisperLive uses it as a real-time wrapper)

• transcription-collector: Processes and stores transcription segments

• Database models: Data structures for storing meeting information

💫 If you're building with Vexa, we'd love your support! Star our repo to help us reach 2000 stars.

Features:

• Real-time multilingual transcription supporting 100 languages with Whisper

• Real-time translation across all 100 supported languages

• Google Meet integration - Automatically join and transcribe Google Meet calls

• Microsoft Teams integration - Automatically join and transcribe Teams meetings

• Zoom integration - Automatically join and transcribe Zoom meetings

• REST API - Complete API for managing bots, users, and transcripts

• Interactive meeting controls - Bot speak/chat/screen/avatar endpoints for active meetings

• WebSocket streaming - Sub-second transcript delivery via WebSocket

• MCP server - Expose Vexa APIs as agent tools for MCP-compatible clients

• Multiuser support - User management, API tokens, and team features

• Self-hostable - Full control over your data and infrastructure

• Open-source frontends - Choose from user interfaces like Vexa Dashboard

Deployment & Management Guides:

• Vexa Lite Deployment Guide - Single container deployment

• Docker Compose Deployment - Full stack for development

• Self-Hosted Management Guide - Managing users and API tokens

• Recording Storage - S3, MinIO, and local storage configuration

Related Projects

Vexa is part of an ecosystem of open-source tools:

🎨 Vexa Dashboard

100% open-source web interface for Vexa. Join meetings, view transcripts, manage users, and more. Self-host everything with no cloud dependencies.

Contributing

We use GitHub Issues as our main feedback channel. New issues are triaged within 72 hours (you'll get a label + short response). Not every feature will be implemented, but every issue will be acknowledged. Look for good-first-issue if you want to contribute.

Contributors are welcome! Join our community and help shape Vexa's future. Here's how to get involved:

1. Understand Our Direction:

2. Engage on Discord (Discord Community):

   • Introduce Yourself: Start by saying hello in the introductions channel.

   • Stay Informed: Check the Discord channel for known issues, feature requests, and ongoing discussions. Issues actively being discussed often have dedicated channels.

   • Discuss Ideas: Share your feature requests, report bugs, and participate in conversations about a specific issue you're interested in delivering.

   • Get Assigned: If you feel ready to contribute, discuss the issue you'd like to work on and ask to get assigned on Discord.

3. Development Process:

   • Browse available tasks (often linked from Discord discussions or the roadmap).

   • Request task assignment through Discord if not already assigned.

   • Submit pull requests for review.

• Critical Tasks & Bounties:

  • Selected high-priority tasks may be marked with bounties.

  • Bounties are sponsored by the Vexa core team.

  • Check task descriptions (often on the roadmap or Discord) for bounty details and requirements.

We look forward to your contributions!

Licensed under Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE.

Project Links

• 🌐 Vexa Website

• 💼 LinkedIn

• 🐦 X (@grankin_d)

• 💬 Discord Community

Repository Structure

This is the main Vexa repository containing the core API and services. For related projects:

• vexa-lite-deploy - Deployment configurations for Vexa Lite

• Vexa-Dashboard - Web UI for managing Vexa instances (first in a planned series of UI applications)

The Vexa name and logo are trademarks of Vexa.ai Inc.