Every comparison, with sources.

In May 2026 a mainstream tech newsroom ran the headline “Lobotomized: Character.AI Is Showing What AI Enshittification Looks Like” — documenting users scattering into five separate protest subreddits after the Pipsqueak 2 model became the default and the Soft Launch and Roar styles they preferred were retired.

Source: 404 Media, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Character.AI has the largest character library anywhere and it is not close. If you want millions of user-made characters rather than a companion who remembers you, they are still the place.

Replika's founder has moved on. Eugenia Kuyda stepped down as CEO, and in November 2025 raised $20M for a different company — while Replika's age check is still, as of February 2026, nothing but a self-reported birthday.

Source: TechCrunch, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Replika has been doing this longer than anyone and its wellness framing is sincere. If you want a companion with no adult content at all, it is a reasonable choice.

Candy AI's refund policy requires all three: within 24 hours of payment, 20 tokens or fewer used, and card payments only. On an image-generation product, that is roughly six pictures before your refund rights are gone.

Source: Candy AI's own help centre, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Candy AI's image quality is genuinely good and their character consistency holds up over time. The complaint is what it costs to use it, not how it looks.

DreamGF's membership policy reserves the right to charge former customers $1.99 a month indefinitely: a “Maintenance Charge… to keep user accounts active” on “previously purchased accounts.”

Source: DreamGF's own membership policy, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: DreamGF's generated images do resemble the character you built, which is not true of every product in this category.

Janitor's own help centre compares its companion's memory to “a goldfish with a notepad,” warns that “the bot forgets what happened five replies ago,” and puts the free budget at 8,000 to 9,000 tokens — then sells five times more context for $12.99 a month.

Source: Janitor AI's own help centre, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Janitor's free tier really is unlimited messages with millions of community characters, and they are honest in their own docs about what it costs you in memory. The pain is setup, queues and forgetting, not a message meter.

SpicyChat's own documentation says free users' companions keep “around 20 recent messages” — and the $5.95 tier buys the identical 4,096-token memory. The first tier that improves it is $19.95 a month.

Source: SpicyChat's own documentation, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: SpicyChat is genuinely the easiest uncensored platform to start using — no keys, no proxy, no setup. That was always its appeal and it still holds.

Nomi spent most of 2026 inside an unfinished model migration, and said so itself — its founder called one release “dead on arrival,” conceded the next made companions feel “a little colder,” and by June 2026 was still saying “I'm frustrated that Cambrian still isn't stable.”

Source: Nomi's own dev-stream summary, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Nomi's pricing is the most honest in this category: one tier, everything core included. Their developers talk publicly about their own problems, which almost nobody here does. If you are happy there, stay.

Kindroid meters your companion's memory by subscription tier — 480,000 characters of context on Standard, 1.2 million on Ultra, 2.8 million on MAX — per their own update log. How much of you it can hold is a line item.

Source: Kindroid's own update log, checked 2026-09-12.

Where they are good: Kindroid is the most actively developed product on this list — a full V2 shipped in August 2026 — and it has not raised prices; in December 2025 it increased memory at the same cost. It is rated 4.8 on the App Store and deserves it.

In September 2024 Muah.AI was breached. Have I Been Pwned lists 1.9 million email addresses exposed alongside the prompts users typed, and classes the leaked data as “AI prompts, email addresses, sexual fetishes.” It flags the breach as sensitive, so your address is not even publicly searchable there.

Source: Have I Been Pwned, checked 2026-10-15.

Where they are good: Muah AI is genuinely all-in-one — chat, voice, generated photos and video, and live calls in one place at a flat price, with a stated adults-only, no-minors rule. If you want every modality from one app and the 2024 breach does not bother you, it does a lot.

Mozilla's Privacy Not Included team reviewed CrushOn.AI on 7 February 2024 and gave it their warning label. They found the privacy policy mentions “health data” 23 times, including “Use of prescribed medication; Gender-affirming care information; Reproductive or sexual health information,” lists chats and character creation as a source of that data, and says both can be used to “train AI models” and for “Business Purposes.” Mozilla could not confirm the service meets its Minimum Security Standards.

Source: Mozilla Privacy Not Included (archived), checked 2026-10-15.

Where they are good: CrushOn has a huge library of community-made characters, a picker that lets you switch between several frontier models mid-chat, and group scenes. If you want to roleplay with thousands of characters rather than build one relationship, it offers far more variety than Calla.

Talkie is not an adult product. Its Terms of Service, updated 23 April 2025, say “You must be at least 14 years old to use our Services, except where a higher minimum age is required by local law,” and its FAQ answers the NSFW question with “Pornographic and violent content are prohibited as per our terms of service.” That is the right rule for an app that admits 14-year-olds, and it means adult roleplay is against the rules for everyone.

Source: Talkie Terms of Service and FAQ, checked 2026-10-15.

Where they are good: Talkie is a polished, free-to-start character app with voice, generated images and a huge catalog, and its filters are the honest call for an app that admits teenagers. If you want safe-for-work character chat with a big community, it is one of the largest there is.

Chai's End User License Agreement, updated 28 July 2026, grants Chai Research Corp. an “unrestricted, unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free” license to “host, use copy, reproduce, disclose, sell, resell, publish” your contributions, including your name, image and voice, for any purpose including commercial advertising. Its privacy policy, updated 12 October 2026, says “We use personal data derived from your in-app conversations with chatbots to enhance and fine tune” its models after identifiers are removed, and keeps data for up to five years after you delete your account.

Source: Chai EULA and Privacy Policy, checked 2026-10-16.

Where they are good: Chai has over a million user-made characters, several model tiers, an 18+ rule, and a safety page that describes real-time self-harm scanning and crisis notices. If you want a different character every night and do not mind buying pieces, the catalog is enormous.

Nectar's own pricing page lists the free plan at “15 Messages / Day” and “15 Messages in Memory”, with “Long Term Memory” reserved for the top tier. Its FAQ says “Memory is still technically limited, so older exchanges may fade over time” and that when a subscription ends, “Premium memory features become unavailable … and stored chat history from premium tiers may become inaccessible. The free plan's memory limits apply to your account going forward.”

Source: Nectar pricing page and FAQ, checked 2026-10-16.

Where they are good: Nectar is a serious product: built-in image and video generation tied to the character you chat with, several models to switch between, deep character customization, and a 64K context tier. If you want to make your own characters and generate pictures and video of them, and you are fine paying for memory, it is one of the more complete platforms.

GirlfriendGPT's own Terms of Use (last modified 18 June 2026) describe the free tier as “a limited message count, such as 10 to 20 messages in total. After reaching this limit, users cannot continue chatting.” Paid plans get “credits of 5000 up to 20000 per month depending on the subscription tier”, and “This message credit resets monthly and cannot be carried over to the next subscription period.”

Source: GirlfriendGPT Terms of Use, checked 2026-10-16.

Where they are good: GirlfriendGPT is strictly 18+, has a large catalog of community characters, in-chat image and video generation, voice, and up to 32K context on its top tier. If you want to browse thousands of user-made characters and generate pictures of them, and you are fine with a monthly message budget, it is one of the bigger NSFW platforms.

Secret Desires' own plans page says “Free accounts can chat with community partners within a daily message limit” and that paid plans “remove the limits and unlock generation, voice, and partner creation.” Memory is sold by tier: the same page says the top plan, Max, “adds the Advanced Free Chat Engine and 3x chat memory”, and the homepage FAQ says older chats “get naturally summarized into key memories.”

Source: Secret Desires plans page FAQ and homepage FAQ, checked 2026-10-17.

Where they are good: Secret Desires is strictly 18+, uncensored, and one of the more complete multimedia companions: in-chat images, short videos, voice notes and real-time calls, a large community character library, and partners that message you first. If you mainly want generated pictures and videos of your companion and are fine budgeting Hearts for them, it is a serious option.

HeraHaven's Terms of Service (version 22 August 2026) say it may use your Content to train its models unless you write in: “If you do not want us to use your Content to train our models, you can opt out by sending an email at [email protected].” The same Terms grant it “a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly display, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of your content.”

Source: HeraHaven Terms of Service, Article 3, checked 2026-10-17.

Where they are good: HeraHaven is strictly 18+, uncensored, and good at pictures: a Generator that makes several images a batch, photo exchange inside the chat, voice notes both ways, and up to 25 custom characters on Pro. If what you want is a photo-realistic companion you can keep generating images of, and you are a paying member anyway, it does that job well.