# Omnia vs Cognigy

> Omnia tests voice agents as recorded duplex calls before each release, and rolls out in steps while each caller stays on the version they started with. Cognigy’s simulator speaks text only, and restoring a snapshot ends calls in progress.

Category: Customer service and voice. Checked against NiCE’s published material on 2026-10-22. Canonical page: https://www.altairalabs.ai/vs/cognigy/

## Cognigy and Omnia both run voice agents. Omnia also tests them as phone calls.

Omnia tests a release the way a caller hears it, then moves calls to it in steps without dropping the ones in progress. Cognigy’s simulator speaks text only, and restoring an earlier snapshot ends the calls already running.

## When it matters: A voice release goes wrong with two hundred calls live.

**On Omnia:** The new version was answering a fraction of calls when its metrics dropped, and Omnia sent new calls back to the previous one. Callers already mid-conversation finished on the version they started with. (Omnia docs: https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/tutorials/progressive-rollouts/)

**On Cognigy:** Restoring a snapshot overwrites the agent’s resources, and conversations in progress stop working because the flows are deleted. (source: https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/deploy/snapshots)

## Simulate the phone call

Omnia’s test scenarios talk to the agent as audio and run on every release. A caller who cuts in halfway through a sentence is a scenario like any other, and each run is recorded for playback. (Omnia docs: https://promptarena.altairalabs.ai/arena/how-to/voice/setup-voice-testing/)

Cognigy: The Simulator only supports text-based conversations. (source: https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/test/simulator/overview/)

## Releases that don’t drop calls

A new version gets traffic in steps. When a pod is replaced, the sessions on it finish before it goes. (Omnia docs: https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/tutorials/progressive-rollouts/)

Cognigy: Deploying means selecting a snapshot on the endpoint. Traffic splitting isn’t documented, and a project keeps up to ten snapshots. (source: https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/deploy/snapshots)

## Any Kubernetes, supported

Omnia installs with public Helm charts into the cluster you run, whichever distribution it is. (Omnia docs: https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/how-to/workspaces/manage-workspaces/)

Cognigy: Self-install supports EKS and AKS; on-premises clusters such as OpenShift take significant extra configuration that Cognigy doesn’t support. (source: https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/administer/installation/prerequisites)

## At a glance

| Topic | Omnia | Omnia docs | Cognigy | Cognigy docs | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simulated users | Multi-turn, against real tools. | https://promptarena.altairalabs.ai/arena/explanation/scenario-design/ | LLM personas, text only. | partly documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/test/simulator/overview/ |
| Adversarial simulated users | Yes. | https://promptarena.altairalabs.ai/arena/how-to/voice/voice-red-team/ | Not documented. | not documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/test/simulator/overview/ |
| Voice simulation | Barge-in, overlap, dead air, recorded. | https://promptarena.altairalabs.ai/arena/how-to/voice/setup-voice-testing/ | Not supported. | not documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/test/simulator/overview/ |
| Stepped rollout, auto rollback | Yes. | https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/tutorials/progressive-rollouts/ | Not documented. | not documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/deploy/snapshots |
| Tool policy | A CEL rule on every call’s arguments. *(enterprise)* | https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/how-to/security/configure-tool-policies/ | Per-tool conditions and MCP tool filters. | partly documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/develop/node-reference/ai/ai-agent |
| End-user identity to tools | Carried to every call. | https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/explanation/platform/delegation-tokens/ | Not documented. | not documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/ai/agents/develop/node-reference/ai/ai-agent |
| Agent traces over OpenTelemetry | Yes. | https://omnia.altairalabs.ai/reference/platform/telemetry/ | Voice Gateway call events only. | partly documented | https://docs.cognigy.com/voice-gateway/technical-capabilities |

## Questions

**Does Omnia handle realtime voice?**

Yes. Duplex voice with interruption handling runs in the runtime, alongside a transcribe-think-speak pipeline when you want one.

**How is Omnia priced?**

Free while you build, the core free in production, and an enterprise licence per environment per year from £30,000. Nothing is metered per conversation or per line.