Character.AI
Still the deepest character library anywhere and the reason the whole companion category exists, but it has been rebuilt around safety and identity checks, and the audience it was famous for is now locked out.
Pros
- Character library is far larger than any competitor's, with voice calls and group scenes included
- Free tier is genuinely usable, with the subscription mostly buying speed and memory
- Safety changes are unusually explicit about what was removed and when
Cons
- Age assurance defaults to face-based estimation, which is a hard stop for privacy-minded users
- Charms are a second currency on top of c.ai+, so the $9.99 is a floor not a ceiling
- No API, no export, and no self-hosting
- The platform has been reshaped by wrongful-death litigation, and further restrictions are plausible