Best Character AI Alternatives in 2026: 8 Apps Like Character AI

No. Character.AI's October 12, 2026 update says its platform “remains up and running” and paid subscriptions remain active, and its iPhone app was still on the US App Store on November 7, 2026. On October 12, 2026 it filed a voluntary US Chapter 11 case, number 26-11603 in the District of Delaware, to sell the company under court supervision; at an October 30 hearing the judge said he would approve the bidding rules, and the court entered that order on November 4, with Disney's $20 million bid for a license to some of its technology as the standing offer. Under the bidding-procedures order the court entered on November 4, 2026, objections to the sale are due November 18, bids are due November 24, the auction is on December 1, the sale hearing is on December 3 and 4, and a sale must close by December 17, 2026. Character.AI says it expects the platform to keep running through the sale; only if no bid allows operations to continue would it be wound down. Our Character.AI bankruptcy guide at prelulu.ai/blog/character-ai-bankruptcy has the court dates and how to bring your characters over.

As of November 4, 2026, Character.AI is being sold under court supervision. Under the bidding-procedures order the court entered on November 4, 2026, objections to the sale are due November 18, bids are due November 24, the auction is on December 1, the sale hearing is on December 3 and 4, and a sale must close by December 17, 2026. Character.AI says it expects the platform to keep running through the sale. Because a closing can follow quickly, and its account export can take weeks to arrive, request the export in Character.AI's settings now rather than in December, and download it before December 17. At prelulu.ai/create-character/character-ai-import you can then paste a public character link or open that export, preview one conversation and keep it as your own character; a character created from the export gets text chat only. The export reader has not yet been tested with a real official export ZIP, so check the preview before you rely on it.

If what you miss is Character.AI itself, paying can be simpler than switching. On the US App Store, checked November 7, 2026, Character.AI lists Character.AI Lite at $4.99 or $2.49 and Character.AI+ at $9.99 or $94.99, and its help center, read November 4, 2026, says unlimited messaging stays on every plan, including free, while the free plan carries full ads. A plan does not change the court-supervised sale, so consider a monthly plan rather than a yearly one while the sale is pending, and request your account export either way. Switch instead if you want a different experience, such as seeing the character answer you: Character.AI's own July 3, 2025 real-time video article says “this is not a product launch (yet)”, and on Prelulu you can video call the character you have been texting when their profile offers video; calls use credits.

Character.AI's October 22, 2024 safety update says it removes Characters that violate its Terms of Service, proactively and after user reports, and removes Characters reported under the DMCA for copyright. For the Characters it removed in October 2024, it said users “won't have access to their chat history with the Characters in question.” Its October 29, 2025 announcement also ended open-ended chat for minors by November 25, 2025. It does not publish a reason for each removed Character, so if a story matters to you, keep your own notes of it.

Better depends on what you miss. For the largest libraries to text, look at Talkie, PolyBuzz or Janitor AI. For a companion you can also call by voice, Nomi and Replika describe calls, and Character.AI launched its own two-way voice Character Calls free of charge in June 2024. To see the character answering you live, Prelulu offers video calls, and Kindroid documents Live Avatar calls for subscribers. This list quotes each app's pages; it is not a quality ranking.

Most apps here let you create characters: Talkie, PolyBuzz and CHAI describe character creation on their own pages. Choose by what your character will do after you write it. On Prelulu you write an original personality, greeting and voice, review it before publishing, and can then text the character you made, and video call it once its video is ready. Start from the Create an original character link above.

Its official Character Calls announcement describes two-way voice calls. Voice calling, responsive avatar video and camera input are different capabilities. Check current account availability rather than assuming that a video research announcement describes a released consumer feature.

Prelulu centers live AI character video chat: you can see a responsive avatar while continuing a conversation, with optional camera input where supported. Its original characters, romance and roleplay are reasons to try it; this is not a claim that every user will prefer it.

When the session supports camera sharing and you enable it with consent, the AI can receive visual input. You can see the avatar without assuming your own camera is on. Use the stop-sharing control when you want to stop sending camera input; hiding the preview only changes what you see.

Yes, to start: new accounts get free welcome credits that can fund a short call, and daily check-in adds free call credits. After that, voice and video calls use credits. Prelulu is free: texting is free every day, with no card required. Prelulu membership starts at $9.99/month on the web ($5.99/month billed yearly, a little more inside the iPhone and Android apps) for 7,200 credits — about 60 minutes of video on characters that offer it, or 180 minutes of voice. Credit packs cost more per minute. Check the pricing page and your wallet for current rates.

You can create an original character and review the available call options on its profile. Private characters are owner-only and require an eligible plan. Unlisted characters stay editable and can be shared by link without appearing in Discover, the feed or search. Public characters are discoverable and frozen after publication. If you are coming from Character.AI, you can bring a character over in the web browser on the Character.AI import page, by public link or with one conversation you choose from your account export: a character imported from a public link gets a voice and a video avatar through normal creation, so you can call it once its avatar is ready, while a character created from the export gets text chat only. Chat history from other apps is not imported.

Yes. Write or speak in your language and the character answers in it, in chat and on the call.

One conversation can come with your character. On Prelulu's Character.AI import page, paste a public character link, or open your Character.AI account export and choose one conversation; you preview it and confirm before upload. Separate conversations are never combined. A character imported from a public link keeps its original portrait and goes through normal creation, which prepares a voice and a video avatar, so you can call it once its avatar is ready; a character created from the export gets text chat only, with no voice or calls.

Try Prelulu if you want romance roleplay with optional live voice and supported video calls. Prelulu is free, and texting is free every day, so you can try the writing before choosing a paid plan. Better depends on the characters and experience you enjoy; this page is not an independent roleplay-quality ranking.

Yes: Prelulu is a Character.AI alternative with live video calls. Open a character's profile, tap Call and choose Video to see them answer you face to face in their own voice, or choose Voice to just hear them, and interrupt anytime. Your camera stays off unless you turn it on, each call runs up to 30 minutes, and it works in your browser at prelulu.ai and in the iOS and Android apps. As of our October 20, 2026 review, Character.AI's official Character Calls announcement describes two-way voice calls, and its TalkingMachines article describes video research that it says is not a product launch.

Yes. Prelulu is free, and its characters also answer on live voice calls: open a character's profile, tap Call and choose Voice to hear them reply in their own voice, and interrupt them mid-sentence. Voice calls use credits; new accounts get free welcome credits that can fund a short call. On their own pages, Nomi and Replika also describe voice calls, and Character.AI describes two-way voice Character Calls.

Yes, to start. Prelulu is free: in your browser you can browse characters without an account, open one and read their first replies as a guest, with no login, email or password. To keep chatting and save your story, create a free account; texting stays free every day, with no card needed. Calls need an account and use credits.

Yes. On their own pages, read October 20, 2026, Talkie calls itself “Free AI Character Chat”, PolyBuzz says it is free with an optional membership, Janitor AI's help center lists unlimited chats with millions of bots on its free plan, and Nomi says it is free to start chatting with no credit card required. Prelulu is free too: in your browser you can read a character's first replies without an account, texting is free every day with no card needed, and new accounts get free welcome credits that can fund a short voice or video call. Free plans change, so check each app's current limits.

Prelulu is free, and every account gets a daily free message allowance for texting. If you want to keep texting past it, a membership removes the daily limit; a credit pack does not. Voice and video calls use credits either way, and the pricing page shows the current plans.

The best Character AI alternatives in 2026 are Talkie, PolyBuzz and Janitor AI for a huge character library to text, Nomi and Replika for a companion you can also call by voice, and Kindroid or Prelulu to see a character answer you live. Talkie calls itself “Free AI Character Chat”, Nomi and Replika describe calls on their websites, Kindroid documents Live Avatar video calls for subscribers, and Prelulu lets you video call the character you have been texting. Each card above quotes that app's own pages on the day shown; it is not a quality ranking.

Janitor AI is the better pick for free, unlimited text roleplay with community bots, and Character AI is the better pick if you also want to talk out loud, because Janitor AI's pages mention no voice or video. Janitor AI's help center, read November 1, 2026, lists “Unlimited chats with millions of bots” and a “Context limit of around 9k tokens” on its free plan, and “5x more context for better memory” with Janitor+; it does not mention voice or video. Character.AI documents two-way voice Character Calls and its own character creation. If you want to hear or see the character, Prelulu adds live voice calls, and video calls on characters that offer them; texting is free every day and calls use credits.

Nomi is the one that leads with memory: its website describes “short, medium, and long term memory”. Janitor AI's help center says Janitor+ gives “5x more context for better memory” than the free plan's roughly 9k tokens. On Prelulu, characters keep selective memory of your chats, calls keep their own memory of earlier calls, and a Pinned memory you write is read in both. We did not run a side-by-side memory test, so this compares what each app says, not measured recall.

Yes. Prelulu is on iOS and Android and in your browser at prelulu.ai, with the same characters and calls everywhere. Check the store before you switch from another app: as of November 4, 2026, PolyBuzz's iPhone app was not on the App Store in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and as of November 7, 2026 neither was CHAI's; both apps remained on Google Play.

Apps similar to Character AI fall into three groups. Talkie, PolyBuzz, Janitor AI and CHAI are large character libraries you mostly text. Nomi and Replika are companions you can also call by voice. Kindroid documents live avatar calls for subscribers, and Prelulu lets you video call the character you have been texting. Prelulu is free: texting is free every day, and voice and video calls use credits. Each card above quotes that app's own pages on the day shown.

Character AI chat means texting an AI character who stays in their role: a personality, a story and a way of talking that hold across the whole conversation. Character.AI is one app built around it, and several others offer it, Prelulu among them: pick an original fictional character in your browser at prelulu.ai or in the iOS and Android apps, and read their first replies with no sign-up. A free account keeps texting free every day, with no card needed. Unlike a text-only character chat, you can then call the same character by voice, or by video when their profile offers it, using credits.