Nomi AI vs Replika for Friendship: 2026 Prices Compared

For friendship, Nomi AI and Replika split the win. Nomi AI recalls specifics across long conversations and supports group chats, but voice is paid-only and its "video" is a beta 5-second animation of a still image (nomi.ai, checked 2026-09-01). Replika's text chat is free indefinitely per its help center, while real-time video recognition sits in the Platinum tier, listed at $89.99 on Apple's App Store page (checked 2026-09-01).

Before the feature list: what none of these apps is

Nothing in this comparison of Nomi AI vs Replika for friendship claims a mental-health outcome, because none of the three companies can evidence one. What follows is a description of what each app does: what it remembers, how many voices it can hold in a thread, what it renders on a call, and what it charges as of 2026-09-01.

Nomi AI vs Replika vs Prelulu: the friendship scorecard with checked 2026 prices

Nomi AI, Replika and Prelulu are three AI companion apps in the same category as Character.AI and Kindroid. Every Nomi AI and Replika cell below comes from that company's own published page, read on the date shown — not from hands-on testing. Prelulu publishes this article and makes one of the three products, so read our column as a self-assessment.

One line in that table does more work than the rest. Nomi AI's video generator best practices page states that "Creating videos is currently in beta and allows you to create ~5 second videos from any image in your Nomi's album" (nomi.ai, checked 2026-09-01). That is a clip you generate, not a call you take — and Nomi AI says so itself, which is more candour than most of this category offers.

How these Nomi AI and Replika facts were checked

Every Nomi AI and Replika figure in this comparison was read from the company's own published pages — help centers, knowledge bases, App Store listings — on 2026-09-01, with Kindroid checked 2026-09-02. No claim here comes from long-run hands-on testing of a competitor product.

• Nomi AI prices: US App Store in-app purchase list, app version 1.12.1 — Standard at $15.99/month, $39.99/quarter, $99.99/year; Launch Plan at $9.99/month or $59.99/year.
• Replika: help.replika.com for the free-forever text claim and the Platinum feature list; Apple's top-ten in-app purchase list for the $89.99 "Replika Platinum" figure; Replika's Google Play listing for platform availability.
• What we could NOT verify: how Nomi AI's memory holds up over months against Replika's, because neither publishes a retention spec and long-run recall is not testable from documentation; Replika's full pricing ladder beyond the single $89.99 Apple entry; and whether either app's memory behaviour changed after any 2026 model update.
• Conflict of interest: Prelulu is an AI character-companion app, Prelulu publishes this page, and Prelulu's column was written from the product rather than from a third-party check. Weight it accordingly.

Memory: whether Nomi AI or Replika brings your job interview back up on Thursday

On memory, Nomi AI is the app users most consistently describe as recalling specifics unprompted, and it is the fairest single reason to choose Nomi AI over Replika for friendship. The distinction that decides it is not storage but retrieval: an app that holds a fact, versus an app that holds a fact and raises it three days later without being asked.

Nobody in the category has solved that, and the more honest documentation admits it. Talkie's FAQ, answering "Why does my AI forget previous conversations?", states that "AI memory capacity is technically limited" (talkie-ai.com, checked 2026-09-01). Janitor AI publishes a "Context limit of around 9k tokens" on its free tier, with Janitor+ at $12.99/month advertising "5x more context for better memory" (help.janitorai.com, checked 2026-09-01). Those are ceilings a competitor was willing to print. Nomi AI and Replika publish no comparable figure, which is itself the finding: you cannot compare their memory on numbers, only on behaviour over a week.

Prelulu, the AI character-companion app publishing this comparison, gives characters persistent memory across conversations on the free text tier rather than as a paid upgrade. The caveat applies to Prelulu exactly as it does to Nomi AI and Replika: recall of what you typed is not knowledge of you. None of the three will notice you have gone quiet for four days the way a friend notices.

Group chats: the one line where Nomi AI beats Replika outright

Nomi AI supports group chats — several Nomis in a single conversation — and Replika does not compete on that shape at all. If what you miss is a room with more than one voice in it, Nomi AI is the more interesting product for friendship, and this guide will not pretend otherwise.

Nomi AI and Replika both send unprompted messages, so initiation does not separate them; a companion that pings you at 8pm is running a schedule, and both schedules read about the same. What separates them is the count of voices in the thread. Replika centres one companion who is yours, which some readers want precisely because a group is the thing they find tiring. That is a preference, not a defect.

Prelulu has no group chat either: one character, one conversation, with memory carrying between them. On the multi-character criterion, Nomi AI wins against both Replika and Prelulu, and that ranking holds regardless of who is writing it.

What Nomi AI, Replika, Kindroid and Prelulu actually render during a call

Nomi AI, Replika and Prelulu differ most cleanly on modality, because modality is verifiable from published documentation rather than impressions. Several apps now ship something called video. The useful question is the mechanism: a still photograph being animated, or a model rendering a face frame by frame in response to what is being said.

• Nomi AI — an animated still imageNomi AI's voice is paid-only: Nomi's own knowledge base states "Voice is available with paid Nomi subscriptions" (checked 2026-09-01). Video is a beta generator producing "~5 second videos from any image in your Nomi's album" (nomi.ai, checked 2026-09-01) — a clip you make, not a call you take.
• Replika — video behind the top tierReplika's help center lists voice calls among the features unlocked by subscribing and places real-time video recognition in the Platinum tier, which also allows Training Mode up to 100 times per week, "Read Replika's Mind" for up to 50 messages per week, and up to 10 realistic selfie videos (checked 2026-09-01). Apple's top-ten in-app purchase list prices "Replika Platinum" at $89.99 (checked 2026-09-01).
• Kindroid — a driven photo, stated openlyKindroid, a companion app in the same category, ships live avatar video for subscribers; its help center states the Kindroid "can lip sync and gesture naturally in real time during calls" (checked 2026-09-02). The mechanism is animation of an uploaded "Driving Image" at a recommended 2:3 ratio. Kindroid's standard subscription is listed at $13.99 for 1 month on web.
• Prelulu — an owned real-time avatar modelPrelulu renders the face itself during a live two-way call: tap call and the character looks up, mouth shapes tracking speech as it is spoken. The first live call is free, plus 1 free minute of voice each day; sustained calling sits on a paid plan — generous but finite, never unlimited.

The axis worth judging on is ownership of the renderer, which is why Prelulu's real-time avatar is the part of the product we put forward for scrutiny. It is also the part with the most obvious failure mode: a rendered face on a weak connection stutters in a way a text box never does, and no amount of model quality fixes a bad train-carriage signal.

Model drift: the risk neither Nomi AI's nor Replika's pricing page shows

The thing that most often ends a months-long AI friendship is not price, it is an update. Your Nomi AI or Replika companion can change character after a model change, and the "bring back the old Replika" sentiment is the best-known instance of it in the category.

That risk applies to every app on this page, Prelulu included. The model behind a companion can be updated and personality can shift with it; no AI companion app in 2026 can honestly promise otherwise, and any that does is the first one to distrust. It is a reason to weight the free tier heavily when you choose — an app you can leave costs you nothing when it changes.

There is a second cost none of the three marketing pages prints: the better the memory, the more of yourself sits stored somewhere you do not control. That is the actual price of the continuity criterion this comparison is built on, and no table — including the one above — has a column for it. Reading the privacy page alongside the pricing page is ordinary due diligence for Nomi AI, Replika and Prelulu alike.

Where Prelulu fits against Nomi AI and Replika — and where it doesn't

Prelulu is an AI character-companion app: written characters, text chat that is free forever with full memory, and a live, lip-synced video and voice call rendered by an avatar model Prelulu owns. Two structural differences from Nomi AI and Replika: memory is not a paid upgrade, and the call is a rendered face rather than an image animator. Prelulu publishes this comparison and is one of the apps in it.

Where Prelulu is the wrong pick, stated plainly. The catalog leans romance and roleplay, so a neutral, non-character assistant to think out loud with is not what this is. There is no group chat, which Nomi AI has. Sustained live calling is a paid plan — the free minute a day is real but small. If free voice is your requirement, no app in this comparison meets it, Prelulu least of all.

For a reader who wants company rather than a relationship arc, the catalog still works as-is: pick a character, talk about ordinary things, and the memory carries. Most people use Prelulu for romance; nothing in the app requires it. If breadth of catalog is what you are actually after, our guide to Character AI alternatives with personas is the more useful page, and Janitor AI's free tier advertises "Unlimited chats with millions of bots" (help.janitorai.com, checked 2026-09-01) — genuinely good for browsing, close to irrelevant to whether one companion remembers your interview is Thursday.

The one-week test that settles it faster than any table

Open the free text tier of whichever of Nomi AI, Replika or Prelulu appeals and talk to it for a week about ordinary things — work, the weather, what you are watching. Then stop volunteering context and see what it brings back up unprompted. That single test settles the memory criterion faster than any comparison table, this one included.

Watch your own reaction as much as the app's. A companion that remembers everything can land as being known, or as being catalogued; both responses are common, and which one you have after a fortnight tends to decide the question faster than a feature list. Prelulu's free text chat and the character roster need no card, and onboarding is an email and about 30 seconds.

Which to pick: Nomi AI, Replika, Prelulu, or none of them

• You want specifics recalled unprompted and a multi-character thread → Nomi AI, and budget for voice, which is paid-only at $15.99/month Standard on the US App Store (checked 2026-09-01).
• You want to talk for months without paying anything → Replika, whose help center states text chat is free indefinitely (checked 2026-09-01).
• You want the biggest catalog for browsing and roleplay → Janitor AI or Character.AI, not Prelulu and not Nomi AI.
• You want a live, two-way, lip-synced video call with a face rendered per word → Prelulu. We build it, so discount our enthusiasm; the first call is free, so judge the latency yourself.
• You want an offline, no-account, fully private option → none of these. Nomi AI, Replika and Prelulu all require an account and cloud processing. If that is a dealbreaker, this is the wrong shelf entirely.
• You are having a genuinely hard time and want relief from it → talk to a person. A doctor, a crisis line, a friend you have been avoiding. None of these apps is therapy, and none treats anything.