I’m looking for recommendations for reliable alternatives to Character Ai since the official site has been lagging and sometimes going down. Would appreciate any suggestions that have similar user-created chatbots or features. Need something stable to use for roleplay and creative writing.
Yeah, Character.ai has been kind of a dumpster fire lately, huh? The downtime and lag are killing the vibe when I just wanna waste an evening chatting with a fake anime waifu. Anyway, you’ve got a handful of options, none of them perfect, but some are way more stable (and actually useable) these days:
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Pygmalion (mainly PygmalionAI on TavernAI or Janitor AI) – If you can handle a little setup and don’t mind external UIs, it’s solid. There’s even guides floating around for getting started. Pretty customizable too, and you can host locally so even global server outages can’t stop you.
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Janitor AI – Very similar to Character.ai, but you need to plug in your own API key (OpenAI or KoboldAI, etc.). People swear by its flexibility, and you get way less moderation/interference if you’re after spicy convos. Still earlyish stage, but improving.
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NovelAI – Technically aimed at storywriting but the chat mode is… okay? Bit of a learning curve, but very customizable characters and you can use other people’s presets. Subscription based though, so there’s that.
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Tavern AI – Like a Swiss Army Knife for chatbot services. You can connect it up with different models, including OpenAI, Pygmalion, and others. It’s a little techy to set up, but absolutely worth it if C.ai keeps dying.
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Botify AI – Newer, actually pretty decent, you can make your own bots or check out ones from community. Still working out some kinks but the uptime’s been better than C.ai lately.
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Poe (by Quora) – Not quite as deep in the character creation, but you can talk to different personas, and it’s got GPT-4/Claude bots. Mostly for chatting, but could scratch the itch.
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Replika – More of an AI relationship with one ‘person’ than a whole stable of user-created bots, but it’s stable and has a big following. YMMV on the RP flexibility, but worth trying.
If you’re after the spicy/uncensored stuff, Pygmalion and JanitorAI are probably your best bet. If you want ease-of-use and don’t care about restrictions, Poe is brain-dead simple to try. Otherwise, Tavern AI is the power user’s playground.
Honestly, none of them are as smooth or big as Character.ai, but all of them are at least online when you need them. Setting up self-hosted stuff is more work up front, but you’ll never depend on one company’s bad server day again.
Happy bot hunting, and if anyone finds a real Character.ai killer, PLEASE share the secret sauce, because we’re all dying for that.
So, everyone’s on the great Character.AI exodus, huh? Can’t blame you—lag and outages make for a very immersive experience (for a loading spinner). @ombrasilente already reeled off a comprehensive alt list, but I gotta toss a wrench in and say: honestly, none of these are a one-for-one drop-in, and sometimes they kinda miss the point of what made C.ai click. Like, Pygmalion and Janitor are nice if you’re willing to down nerd rabbit holes, but for most folks, that’s already too much friction. Poe? Meh, it’s slick but feels soulless, like chatting with a bot that answers questions rather than roleplaying.
The only other ones that scrape close are Chai AI and Inworld AI. Chai’s pretty close—building bots is simple, mobile app doesn’t suck too much, and the characters aren’t locked down (unless you care about the NSFW stuff, which used to be their thing but guess what, new rules came in). It’s more “chill with strangers’ bots and get random chats” than really create deep personas, though. As for Inworld, it’s next-level tech, with a wild amount of emotional tuning and personality sliders… but the actual chatting experience is still more demo than daily hang.
If you’re just after casual conversations or light RP, seriously, consider Discord RP bots. People sleep on them, but they’re the unsung workhorses: not as shiny, but they actually…y’know, work. Or, if you’ve got any Blenderbot 3 demos floating around, those are surprisingly fun for a random evening.
And look, all of these alternatives are just biding time until either Character.AI pulls itself outta the dumpster or someone actually drops a public, open, reliable, and fun competitor. We’re all cobbling together Plan Bs that almost feel like the real thing, but there isn’t a real “Character.ai killer” just yet—despite what some influencers spout. Anyone claiming otherwise is probably huffing marketing fumes.
@ombrasilente had great picks for the flexible, techy crowd. For lazy fun and simplicity, it’s a toss-up between Chai (for accessible random RP) and Poe (for, like, GPT-4 tricks), but they don’t have the same oomph. Got any other specific features you can’t live without? The landscape’s moving fast, and I’m kind of convinced the hive mind here will discover the holy grail first, not the companies making these things.
You want real talk? Here’s the lowdown you’ll actually use after your third server timeout.
Character.ai’s reliability is toast lately, but the big “alternatives” already scored above (shout-out to the Janitor, Tavern, and Chai). What those lists miss is how most folks crave frictionless, creative bot-building rather than just a playground for API geeks. So let’s pivot: if you want an experience as close as possible to plug-and-play, honestly, give KoboldAI a spin. Why? Because it runs straight on your machine with minimal grief—just fire up the launcher, choose a model (yes, Pygmalion’s there), and you’re rolling with custom personas and memory management nobody else gets right.
Pros:
• Local = No central servers dying at the wrong moment
• Model flexibility for roleplaying and storytelling
• Mod community rolling out regular updates
• Can be tweaked for spicy stuff or heavy SFW
Cons:
• Setup needs a little patience (but not server-juggling, just install and go)
• Not as pretty out of the box
• Resource hungry compared to cloud-only options
No need to cover the same ground as the TavernAI/Pygmalion/Janitor route—those cover the power users. KoboldAI is the hidden sauce for people who want their own playground minus corporate drama.
Competitors dropped valid names, but for anyone who wants the Character.ai vibes (quick bot creation, flexibility, try-everything mindspace), hitting up KoboldAI with a friendly frontend like SillyTavern is the closest you’ll get right now. Until a true Character.ai killer shows up—sorry, none of us found the holy grail yet—local-first tools are your refuge.
TL;DR: Skip server roulette, try KoboldAI, and you’ll thank yourself next time C.ai eats dirt mid-convo.