Chat and companions

Conversation, roleplay and relationship apps — hosted services and things you run yourself.

This is the part of the field where the difference between hosted and self-hosted matters most. A hosted companion app holds the conversation on its servers, can change what it permits overnight, and has done so before. A local one cannot.

We record what each service says about both, and say so plainly when it says nothing.

15 tools

SillyTavern

The roleplay front-end. It is not a model: you bring one, local or hosted, and it handles characters, memory, formatting and everything around the conversation.
- Self-hosted
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Roleplay front-ends No GPU needed
Agnaistic

An open-source roleplay front-end you can self-host for a group, with a hosted instance for people who would rather not.
- Hybrid
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Roleplay front-ends No GPU needed
Backyard AI

A desktop companion app that downloads a model and runs it locally, with character chat built in. Formerly called Faraday.
- Hybrid
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Chat and companions No GPU needed
Character.AI

The largest character chat service by a wide margin, and a filtered one. Worth knowing about mostly because everyone starts here.
- Hosted
- Filtered
Chat and companions Not known
Chub AI

A character card repository first, a chat service second. The place people actually get the cards they import elsewhere.
- Hosted
- Allowed
Finding models Not known
GPT4All

A local chat desktop app with a long history, aimed squarely at ordinary hardware and people who do not want a terminal.
- Self-hosted
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Run it yourself No GPU needed
Jan

An open-source desktop assistant that runs models locally by default and can be pointed at a hosted one when you choose.
- Hybrid
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Run it yourself No GPU needed
Janitor AI

A character chat site with a large user-made library, which can also be pointed at your own model or API key.
- Hosted
- Allowed
Chat and companions Not known
Kindroid

A companion app with fine-grained control over the character's backstory and voice, and video selfies.
- Hosted
- Unknown
Chat and companions Not known
KoboldCpp

A single-file local model server built for storytelling and roleplay, with the sampler controls that community actually uses.
- Self-hosted
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Run it yourself No GPU needed
LM Studio

A desktop app for finding, downloading and chatting with local language models. Free, closed source, and the gentlest way in.
- Self-hosted
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Run it yourself No GPU needed
Nomi

A companion service that leans on long-term memory, marketed on the consistency of the character over months.
- Hosted
- Unknown
Chat and companions Not known
Replika

The best-known companion app, and a cautionary tale about depending on a hosted one.
- Hosted
- Unknown
Chat and companions Not known
RisuAI

A roleplay front-end that runs in a browser tab or as a desktop app, with a lighter touch than SillyTavern.
- Hybrid
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Roleplay front-ends No GPU needed
Text generation web UI

The "AUTOMATIC1111 of language models": one interface, many backends, an extension for everything.
- Self-hosted
- Allowed
- No GPU needed
Run it yourself No GPU needed