The alternatives to Character AI come in two kinds. Hosted apps such as Chai, PolyBuzz or Replika work the same way: you open the app, pick a character and chat, and the company runs the model. Front ends such as SillyTavern, or Janitor's website, let you connect a model you choose yourself, often with your own API key.
We checked ten apps on 11 October 2026: who makes each one, the minimum age in its terms, and in how many of 60 App Store countries it is listed. A proxy, it turns out, changes very little of that.
Why are people looking for Character AI alternatives?
The biggest change came from Character.AI itself. On 29 October 2025 it announced: "First, we will be removing the ability for users under 18 to engage in open-ended chat with AI on our platform." The change was to "take effect no later than November 25". To tell ages apart, Character.AI said it would combine a model of its own "with leading third-party tools including Persona".
Its terms set a lower floor for having an account at all: "If you are under 13 years old OR if you are under 16 years old and a citizen or resident in the European Economic Area (EEA) or the United Kingdom (UK), do not sign up for the Services". Rival lists name other reasons too, such as ads and limits on free use. We could not check those, so this page leaves them out.
The ten apps at a glance
We read each app's record in Apple's public App Store data and, where we could reach them, its terms:
| App | Made by | App Store rating | Minimum age in its terms | Listed in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Character AI | Character Technologies, Inc. | 17+ | 13, or 16 in the EEA and UK | 59 of 60 |
| Chai | Chai Research Corp. | 17+ | 18 | 60 of 60 |
| Janitor | JanitorAI, INC | 17+ | not readable from our server | 60 of 60 |
| Kindroid | Beautifully Incorporated | 17+ | 18, or the age of majority | 60 of 60 |
| Replika | Luka, Inc. | 17+ | 18 | 59 of 60 |
| Poe | Quora, Inc | 17+ | 13 | 57 of 60 |
| zeta | Scatter Lab, Inc. | 12+ | not read | 57 of 60 |
| Talkie Lab | SUBSUP PTE. LTD. | 17+ | not found | 56 of 60 |
| PolyBuzz | Cloud Whale Interactive Technology | 17+ | 18 | 54 of 60 |
| Nomi | AI Glimpse Inc. | 17+ | 18 | 51 of 60 |
The rating is the US App Store's. "Listed in" counts App Store storefronts: we looked each app up in 61 countries, one request every 3 seconds. All ten are free to download.
The gaps follow countries. China's storefront listed none of Character AI, Replika, Poe, Talkie Lab, PolyBuzz or Nomi. Nomi was also missing from eight European Union storefronts: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Ireland and Sweden. PolyBuzz was missing in Morocco, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea. Talkie Lab was missing in India and Taiwan, Poe and zeta in Russia, and zeta in Ukraine.
As a control, we looked up WeChat in the same storefronts. It was missing in India and in Bangladesh. Bangladesh returned none of the ten apps either, so we counted the other 60.
The hosted apps
These work like Character.AI: you open the app, pick a character and chat, and the company runs the model.
- Chai, by Chai Research Corp. Its licence agreement: "Chai AI is a platform strictly restricted to users aged 18 and older." Listed in all 60 storefronts. Our page on Chai covers its paid tiers by region.
- PolyBuzz, by Cloud Whale Interactive Technology. Its terms: "Users under 18 years old will be denied for services." Listed in 54 of 60.
- Replika, by Luka, Inc. Its terms: "If you are under 18, you are not authorized to use the Services, with or without registering." Listed in 59 of 60. See our page on Replika.
- Kindroid sets the bar at "at least 18 years of age or the age of majority in their jurisdiction, whichever is greater." Listed in all 60.
- Nomi, by AI Glimpse Inc.: "If you are under the age of 18, you cannot use the Nomi." Listed in 51 of 60.
- Poe, by Quora, is not a character app as such but a "platform that enables users to access various third-party bots". Its terms: "Use of Poe by anyone under 13 years of age is prohibited." Listed in 57 of 60.
- Talkie Lab, by SUBSUP PTE. LTD., describes itself as "a versatile multimodal AI experience". Listed in 56 of 60. Our page on Talkie covers its App Store history.
- Janitor, the iPhone app of JanitorAI, INC, came out on 29 November 2025. Its listing says: "Janitor is where you step inside stories instead of just reading them." Listed in all 60.
- zeta, by Scatter Lab, Inc., is the only one rated 12+. Listed in 57 of 60.
Bring your own model
The second group is not an app with a model of its own. It is a front end: the program you chat in, connected to a model you pick and often pay for yourself. SillyTavern is the best known. Its documentation calls it "a locally installed user interface that allows you to interact with text generation LLMs, image generation engines, and TTS voice models", and says it "will always be free and open-sourced".
The model is your choice. SillyTavern lists "local and cloud-based LLM backends: OpenAI-compatible API, KoboldAI, Tabby, and many more". Janitor's website works the same way. Its help center says that its own model, JLLM, "is the default model used in Janitor unless you've hooked up an external one via API". Its quickstart for an outside model has you paste OpenRouter's chat address into a field named "Proxy URL". That is a second meaning of the word: the address of a model, not a network proxy like ours.
Your own key brings the model provider's rules with it. OpenAI's list of supported countries warns: "Accessing or offering access to our services outside of the countries and territories listed below may result in your account being blocked or suspended." A key does not change where you are allowed to use it.
Where does a proxy fit?
Less than most lists suggest. A proxy changes the network address a service sees. It does not change the three things that decide most of the questions above:
- Your age. The age rules are in the terms, and Character.AI said it would check age with its own model and Persona. No address changes that.
- Your App Store. Which apps you can download depends on your Apple Account's country. Apple's page on changing it says: "You might need to enter a valid payment method for your new country or region."
- A block. Character.AI's terms: "If you are blocked by us from accessing the Services (including by blocking your IP address), you agree not to implement any measures to circumvent such blocking (e.g., by masking your IP address or using a proxy IP address)". Replika's terms say the same about Replika.
Where a proxy is ordinary is the bring-your-own-model side: a front end on a company network that only lets traffic out through a proxy. Our pages on SillyTavern and OpenRouter show those settings, and our page on Character.AI shows what its edge answered our server.
What this page could not check
- App Store listings only, read from one server: not Google Play, the web versions, or rules inside the apps by country.
- Janitor AI's terms page refused our server, and we did not find Talkie's, so their age column stays empty.
- We did not sign up or chat with any app, so this page says nothing about quality, memory or filters.
- A listing in a storefront says nothing about whether the app works, or is legal, in that country.
- We will run the store check again and reread the terms by 11 January 2027.
Sources
- Character.AI, "Taking Bold Steps to Keep Teen Users Safe", 29 October 2025: blog.character.ai.
- Character.AI, Terms of Service, read 11 October 2026: character.ai.
- Chai, End User License Agreement: chai-research.com. Replika, Terms of Service: replika.com. Poe, Terms of Service: poe.com. PolyBuzz, Terms of Use: polybuzz.ai. Nomi, Terms of Service: nomi.ai. Kindroid, legal: kindroid.ai. All read 11 October 2026.
- SillyTavern, documentation, read 11 October 2026: docs.sillytavern.app.
- Janitor AI help center, JLLM (updated 31 July 2025) and the proxy quickstart (updated 1 August 2025): help.janitorai.com.
- OpenAI, Supported countries and territories, read 11 October 2026: developers.openai.com.
- Apple Support, Change your Apple Account country or region, read 11 October 2026: support.apple.com.
- Our own test on our server, 11 October 2026: Apple's lookup API for ten apps in 61 storefronts, 17:28 to 18:02 UTC, the WeChat control from 18:03 UTC, and the US records at 18:06 UTC.
