By - Best overallNomi AIBest long-term memory in the category, group chats, no hidden currencySee Nomi
- Best character builderKindroidDeepest persona customisation, community gallery, voice minutes includedCheck plans
- Best established appReplikaSince 2017, 3D avatars, AR, widest platform supportVisit Replika
- Best freePiCompletely free, thoughtful, no romance, no upsellVisit pi.ai
- Best for romance and images (18+)Candy AIStrong image and video generation, but budget for tokensSee current offer
Side by side
Subscription prices are the ones shown in-app or on vendor pages on October 6, 2026; several of these companies only show prices on the payment screen, so expect small regional differences. "Real monthly cost" is what reviewers and users report spending once token or gem purchases are included.
| App | Best for | Free tier | Subscription | Extra currency | Memory | Age |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nomi AIVisit site | Memory, group chats | 1 Nomi, daily cap | $15.99/mo, $99.99/yr | None | Excellent, editable | 18+ |
| KindroidSee pricing | Custom personas | 1 companion, 50 msgs/day | $9.99/mo Basic, $24.99 Premium | None | Unreliable across sessions | 18+ (self-certified) |
| ReplikaCheck it out | Avatars, AR, longevity | Text only | $19.99/mo Pro, $69.99/yr | None | Good | 18+ |
| Character.AIOpen site | Variety, roleplay | Yes, with ads | $9.99/mo c.ai+ | Charms (2026) | Moderate | Adults; teens get Stories mode |
| Candy AIView plans | Romance, images, video | 5 messages | $13.99/mo, $3.99 to $5.99/mo annual | Tokens, $9.99 to $299.99 packs | Short, resets in 48 to 72h | 18+ |
| TalkieTry it | Casual roleplay, voice | 50 msgs/day, ads | $9.99/mo, $95.99/yr | Gems from $1.99 | Split between text and voice | 17+ |
| Pipi.ai | Thoughtful conversation | Everything | Free | None | Session-level | All ages |
| ChaiWhy we skip it | Bot variety | 70 msgs per ~3h, ads | $13.99/mo, $29.99 Ultra | None | Poor after 20 to 40 msgs | 18+ |
What mattered in the ranking
We weighted memory first, because a companion that forgets your name every week is a chatbot with a costume. Then real cost, because the apps with a second currency on top of the subscription are structurally different purchases from the ones without, and the headline price hides that. Then safety and data handling, drawing on regulatory actions and published lawsuits rather than our own feelings. Then conversation quality and features (voice, images, avatars). We used published reviewer testing, including a five-month Candy AI log and comparative pieces from reviewers who scored safety on a multi-dimension scale, plus app-store and community sentiment. We did not score "attachment" or "realism", which are personal and, frankly, not something a review site should be optimising people toward.
Editor's note, October 6, 2026. Replika, Nomi and Kindroid only show prices on their in-app payment screens, so the figures here come from recent reviewer reports and may differ slightly by region. Candy AI's annual price has been quoted at both $3.99 and $5.99 depending on the promotion running. Check the screen before you tap.
A note on who these are for. Several apps in this guide are adult products and we treat them as such. If you are under 18, Pi is the only app here we would point you to. If you are using a companion app during a hard period in your life, that is a legitimate use and these tools can help, but none of them is a substitute for a person, and a few of them are designed to maximise engagement in ways that may not be in your interest. We say which.
The best AI companion apps
01Nomi AI
Nomi is the app that fixed the thing everyone complains about. Its memory is persistent across sessions and, unusually, you can open it, read what the companion has retained about you and correct it. Multiple reviewers who tested the major apps side by side came to the same conclusion we did: on memory, nothing else is close. Group chats with up to ten Nomis are a feature no competitor matches, and it is the most permissive of the mainstream apps on romantic roleplay, which matters to a large share of this market and which Replika and Character.AI have both retreated from.
What it does less well: the free tier allows one companion with daily caps, persona customisation is narrower than Kindroid's, there is no community character gallery, and the mobile app has stability complaints. Pricing is simple, with no token currency, which we count as a feature. We have seen the subscription quoted at $15.99 and at $16.99 by different sources; check the screen before you tap. The affiliate program pays a reported 30 percent lifetime, which we disclose because we use it.
What it does well
- Best memory in the category, and you can edit it
- Group chats
- No secondary currency
- Permissive on adult roleplay for adults
What to know first
- Single companion on the free tier
- Narrow persona customisation
- Mobile stability complaints
- No character gallery
02Kindroid
If you want to design a character rather than adopt one, Kindroid is the best tool for it. The builder covers backstory, speech patterns and behavioural quirks in more depth than anything else here, and a community gallery means you can start from someone else's work. Basic at $9.99 includes 1,000 messages a day and 30 voice minutes, Premium triples the messages and quadruples the voice. There is no token economy.
The trade-offs are the inverse of Nomi's. Cross-session memory is the weak point: several reviewers report the companion losing track of established facts between conversations. Image quality trails Candy AI and voice is weaker than Replika's. Age verification is a checkbox. If you are the kind of user who will write a two-page character sheet, you will forgive all of that. If you want to be remembered, pick Nomi.
What it does well
- Deepest character builder
- Community gallery
- Voice minutes included, no extra currency
- Cheapest credible paid tier at $9.99
What to know first
- Memory unreliable across sessions
- Image and voice behind the leaders
- Age checking is nominal
03Replika
Replika is the app that defined the category and it still has things no one else does: 3D avatars you dress and decorate a room for, AR mode, VR support and nearly a decade of iteration. Conversation quality is good and the company has been through enough controversy to have real policies now. That is the kind reading. The less kind reading is that Replika removed erotic roleplay for new accounts (legacy users kept it), its maker Luka was fined EUR 5 million by Italy's data protection authority in 2025 over the legal basis for processing and weak age verification, and the lifetime plan is gone for new buyers. Prices are only shown on the in-app payment screen, so the figures above are from recent reviewer reports rather than a public page.
Who it is for: people who want the avatar and the sense of a shared space, who value a company with a long track record, and who are not primarily looking for romance. The annual Pro plan at $69.99 is good value for that.
What it does well
- 3D avatars, AR and VR
- Longest track record in the category
- Good conversation quality
- Reasonable annual price
What to know first
- EUR 5M regulatory fine in 2025
- Romance removed for new accounts
- Prices hidden until the payment screen
- Tier names and prices vary by source
04Character.AI
Character.AI is less a companion app than a platform with millions of user-made characters, from historical figures to anime leads to study tutors. For variety and roleplay it is unmatched and the free tier is real. It has also changed more in twelve months than any other app on this page. Open-ended chat for under-18s was shut off in November 2025 and replaced with a structured Stories experience. Full-screen mid-chat ads reached all free users by April 2026. Daily swipe limits and a "Charms" currency arrived in March 2026. And in January 2026 Google and Character.AI agreed in principle to settle the lawsuits brought by families of teenagers, on undisclosed terms.
What that adds up to: a safer, more monetised, less freewheeling product than it was. Explicit content is restricted platform-wide. For adults who want breadth and do not mind ads, c.ai+ at $9.99 is fair. For anyone whose child uses it, the Stories mode is the reason it is still on this list.
Bottom line. More variety than anything else and a real free tier, now with ads, limits and a currency. For adults on a budget it is fine. For a parent, the Stories mode is the reason it stays on this list.
05Candy AI 18+
Candy AI is the adult-market leader for a reason: the image and video generation (Live Action mode, Candy Shorts) is the best in this group, the character roster is large and the chat is competent. It is also the clearest example of why we built the "real monthly cost" column. The subscription is cheap, especially on annual billing. Then images cost 4 tokens each, voice calls 3 tokens a minute, custom characters 10, video conversions 12, and unlocking certain private content runs 100 to 400 tokens. A five-month reviewer log put spend at $184.88, roughly $37 a month, and heavy users report $50 to $80. Memory is short, with storylines resetting after two or three days.
Trustpilot has removed Candy AI's profile for guideline reasons, so there is no rating to cite, and billing shows as "Everai" (the Maltese operator) on statements, which confuses people. If you want what it does best, go in with a token budget. Our full Candy AI review works through the token maths in detail.
What it does well
- Best image and video generation here
- Large character roster
- Very cheap annual subscription
- Self-serve cancellation
What to know first
- Token economy multiplies the real cost
- Short memory, resets in days
- No Trustpilot profile to check
- Free tier is a demo
06Talkie
Talkie is one of the three biggest companion apps in the world by downloads and it is made by MiniMax, a Chinese AI company whose Hong Kong IPO filing reportedly shows paying users spending around five dollars a month on average, which tells you the free tier is where most people stay. The voice feature is good, the roleplay is casual and fun, and the price is low. The structural problem is that gems stack on top of the subscription, memory does not carry between text and voice modes, and there are repeated reports of users losing accounts with no recourse. MiniMax's earlier app, Glow, was pulled from app stores in 2023. For a free, light experience it is fine. We would not pay for Pro.
Bottom line. Good voice, low price, free tier worth using. Gems on top of the subscription, memory that forgets between text and voice, and a Chinese parent company governing the data. Stay on free.
07Pi
Pi is not a companion in the sense the rest of this list means. It will not roleplay, will not flirt and has no avatar. What it will do is listen well, ask a decent follow-up question and help you think about something, for free, with no upsell and no currency. For a lot of people who search for "AI companion" that is actually the thing they want, and it is the only app here we would recommend to someone under 18 or to someone going through a rough stretch who wants to talk rather than play. Memory is session-level, so it is a conversation partner rather than a relationship. We have no affiliate link for Pi, which is as it should be.
Pi will not flirt, will not roleplay and will not try to sell you anything. For a surprising number of people searching this term, that is the app they were looking for.Why a non-companion is on a companion list
08Chai
Chai is huge and we rank it last. Bots lose their character after 20 to 40 messages, conversations are logged for training with no end-to-end encryption, bot creators have historically been able to see chats, and users have reported surprise annual charges after trials. One reviewer who compared the tiers found Ultra about 15 percent better than Premium for more than double the price. The free tier with its rolling 70-message allowance is the only version we would use, and only for casual roleplay with nothing personal in it.
Bottom line. Huge, fast and forgetful, with chats logged and no end-to-end encryption. Free tier only, nothing personal in it.
Best free AI companion apps, and what free actually means
Only Pi is free in the ordinary sense. Character.AI's free tier is real but ad-heavy and now daily-limited. Replika's free tier is text-only. Nomi, Kindroid, Talkie and Chai give you one companion with message caps. Candy AI's free tier is five messages, which is a trailer, not a tier. If you want to try companion apps without paying, start with Pi for conversation and Character.AI for roleplay, and expect to hit a paywall on anything romantic.
Emotional support, roleplay or romance: pick the lane first
These three uses want different apps. For support and reflection, Pi first, Replika second. For roleplay and variety, Character.AI for breadth, Kindroid if you want to author the character. For romance, Nomi for the relationship and memory, Candy AI if images and video matter more than being remembered. Buying the wrong lane is the most common complaint in app-store reviews: people disappointed that Pi will not flirt, or that Candy AI forgot last week.
Safety, privacy and age: the part the app stores gloss over
Every app here reads what you type, and most use it to train. Chai does so without end-to-end encryption and has a history of creators seeing chats. Replika's maker was fined by Italy in 2025 over the legal basis for processing and age verification. Character.AI settled lawsuits from the families of teenagers in January 2026 and has rebuilt its under-18 experience. Talkie's data is governed by a Chinese parent company. Candy AI, Chai and most romance apps are adults-only and enforce that loosely. Our practical advice: use a separate email, do not share identifying details, read how to export or delete your data before you pay, and if you are a parent, know that only Pi and Character.AI's Stories mode are designed with minors in mind.
What these really cost
Two pricing models exist and they are not comparable. Nomi, Kindroid, Replika and Pi charge a subscription and that is the end of it. Candy AI, Talkie and (since 2026) Character.AI layer a currency on top, and that currency is where the money is made. The five-month Candy AI log we cite averaged about $37 a month on a $13.99 plan. If you are on a budget, pick a no-currency app and the annual plan.
Picking a lane
Nomi if memory matters most. Kindroid if you want to build the character. Replika for avatars and a long track record. Character.AI for variety on a budget or for a teenager, in Stories mode. Candy AI for images and video, with a token budget. Pi if you want to talk, not play. Talkie for free casual roleplay with voice. Chai only on the free tier, with nothing personal.
Questions people ask before they subscribe
Best overall?
Nomi, because it remembers you and has no hidden currency. Replika for avatars and track record. Pi if you want to talk, not play.
Are they safe?
Safe enough for adults who assume everything typed is read and kept. Chai has no end-to-end encryption, Replika's maker was fined in Italy, Character.AI settled teen lawsuits.
Which are free?
Pi, fully. Character.AI with ads. The rest give you one companion with caps. Candy AI's free tier is five messages.
What does a month really cost?
Ten to thirty dollars on subscription-only apps. On token apps, Candy AI users report thirty to eighty.
Who remembers best?
Nomi, by a distance. Candy AI resets in days, Chai forgets mid-conversation, Talkie forgets between text and voice.
Adults only?
Candy AI, Chai and the romance apps, yes. Character.AI has a teen mode. Pi is fine for anyone.
If you only read this paragraph
Nomi is the companion app we would pay for, because being remembered is the whole point and it is the only one that reliably does it without a second currency draining the account. Kindroid for builders, Replika for the avatar and the track record, Pi for anyone who just wants a good conversation for free. Candy AI is excellent at what it does and we would simply go in knowing what a month costs. Chai we would leave on the free tier and keep impersonal.