AI Girlfriend Apps vs Character Chatbots

What counts as each type

There is no official line between the two. California's companion chatbot law, SB 243, defines a companion chatbot by what it can do: give "adaptive, human-like responses", meet "a user's social needs" and "sustain a relationship across multiple interactions". By that test, both types can qualify. The practical difference is what each product is built around, and the companies say so themselves:

• Companion apps: Nomi ("AI Companion with a Soul"), Replika ("AI Companion Chat") and Kindroid ("Your Personal AI") use companion language in their store names; Candy AI is a web platform for creating an AI girlfriend, with chat, images and video.
• Character platforms: Character.AI calls itself an interactive entertainment platform, Janitor AI's apps are called "Interactive Stories", Talkie is a "Creative AI Community", Chai a "Social AI Platform" and SpicyChat offers "NSFW AI Chatbots and Roleplay for Adults".

The lines blur at the edges: Kindroid and Candy AI also offer ready-made characters, and the character platforms let you write your own. Our glossary entry on what an AI companion is covers the legal definitions in more detail.

App	Relationship modes	Character library	Custom characters	Memory	Voice calls	Images	NSFW
Nomi	Yes	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Replika	Yes	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not confirmed
Kindroid	Set in the backstory	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Candy AI	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Character.AI	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Janitor AI	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	No (planned)	No (planned)	Yes
SpicyChat	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes
Talkie	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not confirmed	Yes	No
Chai	Not confirmed	Yes	Yes	Not confirmed	Not confirmed	Not confirmed	No

Yes No Not confirmed by an official sourceChecked October 20, 2026.

"Yes" means the app documents the feature on at least one plan; "Not confirmed" means no official page says so.

Relationship focus: a partner or a cast

Companion apps give the relationship a shape. Replika allows one companion per account ("Each account can only have one Replika") and sets the tone with a relationship status: Friend for free, Romantic partner, Sister or Brother and Mentor with Pro. Nomi offers Friend, Mentor, Romantic or a custom starting point and up to 10 companions on paid plans. Kindroid has no relationship selector; the backstory you write sets the tone, for up to 10 Kindroids on a subscription. Candy AI's character builder includes a "type of relation" field.

Character platforms have no relationship settings at all. You open a character, chat, and move on to the next one whenever you like. SpicyChat's "Partner" and "Friend" exist only as tags that users put on characters. You can keep returning to one favorite, but nothing in the product tracks that bond. Our comparison of Replika vs Character.AI shows the difference with two well-known apps.

Who writes the character

On a companion app, mostly you do. Nomi's Backstory+ has sections for backstory, preferences, desires and boundaries; Kindroid allows a personality of up to 2,000 characters (2,500 for subscribers), key memories and example messages; Replika has a free-text backstory plus traits and interests bought with in-app currency; Candy AI's builder picks looks, personality, voice and hobbies, with more detail costing tokens.

On a character platform, mostly other people do. Character.AI promises "10M+ Characters", Janitor AI "millions of bots", SpicyChat a library of more than 300,000 NSFW characters, and Talkie and Chai large community libraries. Creators get long definition fields (32,000 characters on Character.AI, 5,000 for a SpicyChat personality), and you play yourself through personas: three on SpicyChat's free plan, more on paid tiers. Our guide to building an AI character covers writing for either type.

Memory: built for months or for a scene

Companion apps sell memory as a core feature and document how it works:

• Nomi: short, medium and long-term memory, an Identity Core and Mind Map 2.0, an editable map of what it knows. Nomi says recall is not perfect.
• Kindroid: persistent memory (backstory, key memories, Learned Context), a cascaded medium-term memory for subscribers and retrievable long-term memories plus keyphrase-triggered journals.
• Replika: a Memory tab where you add, edit and delete memories; saved memories on Ultra.
• Candy AI: memory tied to the active chat; Premium Plus lists 20 memory slots.

Character platforms lean on the model's context window, the amount of recent text it can see. Janitor gives about 9,000 tokens free (five times more on janitor+) plus a Chat Memory field you write yourself. SpicyChat offers 4,096 tokens free, up to 32,768 on its top tier, with Memory Manager and automatic Semantic Memory only on paid plans. Character.AI adds pins and, on c.ai+, automatic Facts. Talkie's FAQ admits memory is "technically limited, causing older conversations to be forgotten", and Chai documents no memory system. Our page on AI companions with memory ranks the tools, and how AI companion memory works explains the mechanics.

Voice, selfies and video

Companion apps tend to make the companion visible and audible. Replika has a 3D avatar, voice and video calls, AR and a Meta Quest beta; Kindroid has voice calls, live video calls with an animated avatar and selfies; Nomi has calls, selfies, art and short videos made from images; Candy AI sells images, image-to-video and voice through tokens.

Character platforms are mixed. Character.AI offers free voice replies and two-way calls plus image tools; SpicyChat has in-chat images from its $19.95 tier and text-to-speech on its $29.95 tier; Talkie lists image, video and audio creation tools; Chai's characters have their own voices; Janitor AI has no voice or images yet. See AI girlfriend apps with voice for calls and costs.

Content rules depend on the company, not the type

Both groups include strict and permissive services. Summarized from each app's own policies:

Where you use an app also matters. Apple's App Review rules require apps that show incidental NSFW content from a web service to hide it by default and let users switch it on through the website, which is why Janitor's mobile apps start in a restricted mode and why several adult services work mainly in the browser. Our NSFW AI girlfriend apps guide goes deeper.

Pricing models: subscription first or free first

The pattern is clear. Character platforms give chat away and sell speed, memory and an ad-free experience; three of the four companion apps limit or remove free chat and sell the companion's extras (more messages, calls, selfies) with credits on top. The cheapest paid entries are on character platforms. Our free vs paid AI girlfriend apps page breaks this down app by app.

Privacy: training and exports

Privacy also varies by company rather than type. Character.AI and Chai say they use chats to train or fine-tune their models (Character.AI documents an opt-out for EEA and UK users), Candy AI's Terms license chats for training, and Talkie says its chatbot learns from your interactions. Nomi uses aggregated, anonymized chat data to improve its AI, and Replika uses small anonymized portions to train its own safety algorithms. Kindroid encrypts chats at rest and in transit and, like Character.AI, offers a self-serve data export. Janitor AI does not say whether chats train its model. Details are in our AI companion privacy guide.

Which type suits you?

• One ongoing relationship with memory and calls: a companion app such as Nomi, Kindroid or Replika.
• Variety, fandom and story roleplay: a character platform such as Character.AI, Janitor AI or Talkie.
• The most free use: Character.AI or Janitor AI, both with unlimited free chat.
• Adult roleplay: Kindroid among companion apps; Janitor AI or SpicyChat among character platforms.
• Images and video of your companion: Candy AI, Kindroid or Nomi, all paid.

For ranked lists of each type, see our best AI girlfriend apps and AI character chat apps, or browse all head-to-heads on our comparisons hub.