IzwiIzwi

Getting Started

Get Izwi running in under 5 minutes.

Step 1: Install Izwi

macOS

Download the latest .dmg from GitHub Releases, then:

  1. Open the downloaded .dmg file
  2. Drag Izwi.app to your Applications folder
  3. Launch Izwi from Applications

On first launch, Izwi will set up the izwi command-line tool automatically.

Linux

Download the .deb package from GitHub Releases:

sudo dpkg -i izwi_*.deb

Windows

Download and run the .exe installer from GitHub Releases.

See Installation for detailed platform-specific instructions.

Step 2: Start the Server

Open a terminal and run:

izwi serve

You should see:

Izwi server running at http://localhost:8080

Desktop mode (opens the native app):

izwi serve --mode desktop

Web mode (opens in your browser):

izwi serve --mode web

Step 3: Download a Model

Izwi needs AI models to work. Download your first model:

izwi pull qwen3-tts-0.6b-base

This downloads a compact text-to-speech model (~1.2 GB).

View all available models:

izwi list

View your downloaded models:

izwi list --local

Step 4: Try It Out

Generate Speech

izwi tts "Hello! Welcome to Izwi." --output hello.wav

Play the generated audio:

izwi tts "Hello! Welcome to Izwi." --play

Transcribe Audio

First, download an ASR model:

izwi pull qwen3-asr-0.6b

Then transcribe:

izwi transcribe your-audio.wav

Step 5: Open the Web UI

With the server running, open your browser to:

http://localhost:8080

The web interface provides:

  • Voice — Real-time voice conversations
  • Chat — Text-based AI chat
  • Transcription — Upload and transcribe audio files
  • Text to Speech — Generate speech from text
  • Voice Cloning — Clone voices from samples
  • Models — Manage your downloaded models

Next Steps