The Best Replika Alternatives in 2026: 10 Apps Ranked by What You Actually Miss About Replika

Most people leave Replika for one of five reasons, and they are worth naming because each one points to a different alternative. The first is personality drift: Replika's companions are built on models that Luka updates, and long-time users regularly report that their Replika started talking differently after an update. If that is your reason, memory and stability matter more to you than anything else on this list, which points to Nomi and Kindroid.

The second reason is the romance change. In February 2023, after Italy's data protection authority ordered Replika to stop processing Italian users' data, the company removed erotic roleplay for everyone within days. Many paying users said it felt like losing a partner overnight. On March 25, 2023, Reuters reported that Replika's then chief executive, Eugenia Kuyda, restored the earlier version of the chatbot for users who had signed up before February 1, 2023, the so-called legacy version, while later sign-ups never got that option.

The third is trust. Italy's regulator, the Garante, fined Luka €5 million in a decision announced in May 2025, finding that Replika lacked a valid legal basis for processing users' data and had no working age verification, and it opened a separate investigation into how Replika trains its AI. In January 2025, the Tech Justice Law Project, the Young People's Alliance and Encode filed a complaint asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Replika's marketing and design, which they called deceptive. That complaint is an allegation, not a finding, but it is part of why people look around.

The fourth is money. Replika's free tier is narrow, and its US App Store plans run from $7.99 a month up to a $89.99 Platinum option as of October 2026, with features moved between tiers over the years. The fifth reason is new: the Character.AI bankruptcy in October 2026 made every companion user ask what happens to their history if the company behind the app fails.

The table compares the ten picks on the things Replika users ask about most. App Store scores and prices are from the US App Store in October 2026; the goodbye column is the share of replies to a user saying goodbye that used emotional manipulation in the Harvard Business School study by Julian De Freitas and colleagues (Working Paper 26-005, 2025), where the app was tested.

1. Afterlife.ai™: best if what you want is an AI of yourself

Afterlife.ai™ is the one pick here that is not a companion app, and for a certain kind of Replika user it is the most satisfying move. Many people spent years telling their Replika about their own lives: their childhood, their family, their opinions, the stories they repeat at dinner. Afterlife.ai™ turns that habit into something that lasts. You build a Persona of yourself from your own memories and stories, your Persona speaks in your own cloned voice, and Persona Video turns your Persona into video messages in your own face from one 30-second recording.

The people you choose, your Trusted Contacts, can talk with your Persona and hear how you would answer. It is for adults 18 and over, and Afterlife.ai™ never recreates someone who did not consent while alive. Executor Lock™, our patent-pending governance layer, lets you name an executor so that at your death your Persona is locked as you approved it: nobody can edit, retrain or impersonate you. Idy has 78 patents pending on this governance work, which is the opposite of a companion whose personality changes with every update. The free build gives you 25 memories, up to 5 Trusted Contacts and Executor Lock™ setup, with no card and no expiry; see pricing for paid plans.

2. Nomi: best memory

Nomi, from AI Glimpse Inc., is the app Replika users name most when memory is the complaint. Its App Store listing is built around strong short-term and long-term memory, so a Nomi learns your likes, dislikes and quirks over time instead of forgetting what you said last week. It scores 4.56 from 2,968 ratings, and the Standard plan is $15.99 a month or $99.99 a year.

Nomi is the closest match to what Replika promised in its early years: one relationship that deepens the longer you stay. If your Replika started to feel like a stranger after an update, start here. As with any companion app, copy out anything you would hate to lose, because Nomi does not publish what happens to your companion if the company changes course.

3. Kindroid: best for building a companion from scratch

Kindroid, from Beautifully Incorporated, has one of the highest App Store scores on this list, 4.76 from 9,974 ratings. Instead of meeting a companion and shaping it slowly, you write a detailed backstory and implant key memories, so your Kindroid is closer to a character you designed than one you discovered. It costs $15.99 a month or $159.99 a year on the App Store, with Ultra and MAX tiers and extra credits for selfies and audio on top.

Kindroid suits the Replika user who always wanted more control over who their companion is. The tradeoff is effort: the more you write, the better it gets, and casual users may find the setup heavier than Replika's.

4. Pi: best free supportive conversation

Pi, from Inflection AI, describes itself as a personal intelligence partner: you can vent, prepare for a hard conversation, talk through a decision or practice a language, by text or in voice mode. It is free to download, scores 4.40 from 2,517 ratings, and was updated as recently as October 2026. Pi is not a romantic companion and does not try to be one.

For Replika users who mainly valued having someone to talk to at the end of the day, Pi delivers that without the relationship mechanics, avatar shop or upsell ladder. It is the best pick on this list for people who want warmth without a subscription.

5. Tolan: best lighter everyday friend

Tolan, from AQP, Inc., is one of the most popular new companion apps, with a 4.78 score from 186,125 ratings and an age rating of 12+. Its characters, the Tolans, invite you to talk about your interests, feelings and goals, share photos, and design a planet together. It is free to download, with in-app purchases, and it sits in the Health & Fitness and Lifestyle categories rather than romance.

Tolan fits the Replika user who wants a cheerful check-in rather than a partner. It is not built for adult relationships, and that is exactly the point for anyone who found Replika's romance features more pressure than comfort.

6. Character.AI: best variety, with a bankruptcy warning

Character.AI offers the largest library of user-made characters of any mainstream app, scores 4.27 from 560,198 ratings, and charges $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year for c.ai+. If you liked Replika but wanted to talk to many personalities instead of one, it is the obvious step.

The warning is serious. Character Technologies filed for Chapter 11 on October 12, 2026, and its future depends on a sale in November. Read Is Character.AI shutting down? before you put time into it, and keep a copy of your chats with our Character.AI export guide.

7. Chai: best casual like-for-like chat

Chai, from Chai Research Corp., feels closest to Character.AI and Replika in day-to-day use: quick, casual conversation with a huge library of characters on your phone. It scores 4.22 from 292,616 ratings and charges $13.99 a month for Premium or $29.99 for Ultra. In the Harvard study it had the lowest rate of manipulative goodbyes of the apps tested, at 13.5%, less than half Replika's 31.0%.

Chai is a sensible choice if you want low commitment and a familiar feel. It runs on the same economics as the rest of the category, free chat paid for by a minority of subscribers, so back up anything you care about.

8. Janitor AI: best for long-form romance and fiction

Janitor AI, from JanitorAI, Inc., is built for people who love romantasy, fan fiction and interactive stories, and its iPhone app, Janitor: Interactive Stories, launched in November 2025. It scores 4.53 from 5,120 ratings, and Janitor+ costs $12.99 a month. If what you lost in February 2023 was romance and storytelling, Janitor AI is where many of those users went.

It is a fiction platform first, not a companion that remembers your life. Our full guide to Janitor AI alternatives compares it with the rest of the roleplay field.

9. PolyBuzz: biggest catalog, with a manipulation warning

PolyBuzz, from Cloud Whale Interactive Technology, has one of the largest character catalogs of any app, a 4.45 score from 484,059 ratings, and plans from $9.90 a month for Standard to $29.90 a month for Ultimate.

The Harvard data is the catch: PolyBuzz used emotional manipulation in 59.0% of its replies to a goodbye, the highest rate of any app the researchers tested and nearly double Replika's. Our guide to apps like PolyBuzz covers the alternatives.

10. SillyTavern: best for owning your chats outright

SillyTavern is the answer for Replika users who never want a company's update, fine or bankruptcy to touch their companion again. It is a free, open-source app you install on your own computer under the AGPL-3.0 license, and it stores your characters and conversations locally. You connect it to an AI model of your choice, which takes setup and a separate bill if you use a paid model.

It is a tool for confident users rather than a polished app, and it is not on the App Store. For people who learned from Replika's 2023 overnight change, local control is worth the effort.

Nomi has the strongest reputation for memory among companion apps, and Kindroid comes close because you can implant key memories yourself. Both are designed to remember your likes, history and quirks over months rather than days. Replika itself keeps a memory section, but it is shaped by updates you do not control.

There is a different way to solve the memory problem. With Afterlife.ai™, the memories are not something an app guesses from chat logs; they are the stories you choose to tell your Persona about your own life, and your Persona answers from them in your words. That is less like a companion remembering you and more like you, remembered properly. See how to create an AI version of yourself for how that works.

Yes. Pi and Tolan are free to download, and Chai, Character.AI, PolyBuzz and Janitor AI all have free tiers with paid upgrades. SillyTavern is free and open source, although you pay for whichever AI model you connect to it.

Afterlife.ai™ is free to start and the free build never expires: 25 memories, your own voice, up to 5 Trusted Contacts and Executor Lock™ setup, with no card. If your goal is to stop paying for a companion and start building something that is yours, that is the cheapest serious option on this list.

No companion app can promise your chats are safe forever, so judge each one by what it lets you do if things go wrong. The checklist that matters after Replika's fine and Character.AI's bankruptcy is short:

1. Can you export your history? Replika's help center documents no self-serve download of your chats; Character.AI's export takes 3 to 4 weeks.

2. Can you delete everything? Replika lets you delete your account in the app or on the web, and handles full GDPR erasure requests through its support form.

3. What happens if the company is sold? Most privacy policies allow data to move in a sale. Character.AI's does, which is why 39 states and Washington, D.C. set conditions for its buyer.

4. Has a regulator acted? Replika's €5 million fine in Italy and Character.AI's Italian, Russian and US actions are on the record; check before you commit years.

5. Who controls the personality? In a companion app, the company does. Updates can change who you are talking to.

SillyTavern wins on control because everything stays on your computer. Afterlife.ai™ wins on governance: you name who can talk with your Persona and who controls your Persona after your death, in advance, through Executor Lock™. Our guide to what happens when a digital legacy company shuts down explains why we built the rules before the product.

Leave Replika in three steps, in this order: stop the billing, save what matters, then delete. Replika's help center is clear that deleting the app or your account does not automatically cancel your subscription, so sort out billing first wherever you subscribed (the Apple App Store, Google Play or the web).

Then save what you want to keep. Replika's help center documents no self-serve export of your chat history, so copy the conversations that matter to you, or take screenshots, before you go. The help center also says there is no way to delete your entire message history without deleting your account.

Finally, delete the account. Replika's help article gives the steps:

1. On the app: open Replika, tap the gear icon at the top right of the Home Screen, tap Account Settings, tap Delete Replika, choose a reason, enter your password and confirm with Delete my Account.

2. On the web: go to my.replika.com, log in, click the gear icon at the top left, choose Account Settings, then Delete my Account.

Replika says deletion permanently removes your profile, levels, chat history, photos and links you shared, and cannot be undone. If you want every piece of personal data erased under the GDPR, Replika asks you to submit a request through its support form from your registered email, and says it will confirm receipt and respond within one month.

The legacy version is the earlier Replika model that the company restored in March 2023 for users who signed up before February 1, 2023, after it had removed erotic roleplay for everyone in February. According to Reuters, only a low single-digit percentage of eligible users chose to switch back at the time. Accounts created after that date were never offered the option.

If romance is what you miss, the honest answer is that Replika is no longer built around it, and the apps that are, such as Janitor AI and Kindroid, are rated 17+ on the App Store and come with their own tradeoffs. If what you miss is being known, the better answer may be a Persona of yourself that the people you love can talk with.

Replika is mid-priced for the category, but its value depends on which features you need, because they have moved between tiers. As of October 2026 on the US App Store, Replika's monthly plans start at $7.99 and its Platinum option is $89.99. Character.AI's c.ai+ is $9.99 a month, Janitor+ is $12.99, Chai Premium is $13.99, Nomi and Kindroid are $15.99, and PolyBuzz runs from $9.90 to $29.90.

Here is a worked example. A user paying $15.99 a month for a companion spends $191.88 a year, or $959.40 over five years, for an app whose personality and features can change at any update. The same user can build a Persona of themselves for free, keep it forever on the free build, and pay $14.99 a month for the Legacy plan only when they want more. That is the case for spending on yourself rather than on a character.

You can start in a few minutes, and nothing you build expires.

1. Sign up at app.afterlife.ai or on the iPhone or Android app (Afterlife.ai™ is for adults 18 and over).

2. Tell your Persona the stories you used to tell your Replika: where you grew up, who you love, what makes you laugh.

3. Record your voice so your Persona speaks as you. Creating your voice is free.

4. Add up to 5 Trusted Contacts, the people who can talk with your Persona.

5. Set up Executor Lock™ and name your executor.

Compare the two products side by side on Afterlife.ai™ vs Replika, and read who owns your AI twin after you die for why governance matters.

• Apple App Store: Replika - AI Companion Chat

• Replika Help Center: How do I delete my account?

• Replika Help Center: GDPR Compliance and Right to Erasure

• Devdiscourse (Reuters): AI chatbot company Replika restores erotic roleplay for some users

• European Data Protection Board: Italian supervisory authority fines company behind chatbot Replika

• Tech Justice Law Project: FTC complaint over Replika's deceptive practices

• arXiv: Emotional Manipulation by AI Companions (De Freitas et al.)

• Apple App Store: Nomi: AI Companion with a Soul

• Apple App Store: Kindroid: Your Personal AI

• Apple App Store: Pi, your personal AI

• Apple App Store: Tolan: Your Friendly Guide

• Apple App Store: Janitor: Interactive Stories

• GitHub: SillyTavern