AI Anyone vs Character AI: an honest comparison

By AI Anyone · 2026-10-15 · 7 min read · Technology

An honest comparison of Character.AI and AI Anyone, with every Character.AI detail taken from its own pages: characters, voice calls, memory, ads, price, and where Character.AI is still better.

Published October 15, 2026. Character.AI details checked on its own pages the same day.

If you are reading this, you have probably used Character.AI, maybe for years, and you are wondering what else is out there. We build AI Anyone, so we are not neutral. What we can do is keep this checkable: every line about Character.AI below comes from Character.AI's own pages, and every line about AI Anyone is something you can try on a free account.

One piece of context first. On October 12, 2026, Character.AI announced a voluntary Chapter 11 filing to run a court-supervised sale, and says the platform "remains up and running" for now (Character.AI blog). We wrote up what that means in a separate post. This page is about the products, and right now the app is still up, so nothing below has changed because of the sale.

What both of them do

A lot is the same, and it is worth saying so before the differences.

• Characters with personality. Both let you chat with characters other people made, or make your own.
• Voice. Character.AI's App Store listing says you can "interact through texting or live voice calls" (App Store). On AI Anyone, every character can be called out loud too.
• Memory. Both remember things across chats and let you pin what matters.
• A free tier and a paid plan. Both.

Side by side

Sources for the Character.AI column: character.ai/plus and the App Store listing. We quote only what those pages show. Where they say nothing we could check, we leave the cell out rather than guess.

What Character.AI is still better at

This section matters as much as the others, so here it is plainly.

• Size. By its own listing, Character.AI is home to millions of user-made characters. AI Anyone has 13,000+. If the character you love is a niche one somebody made there, it may not exist here yet, and you would have to bring it over or make it.
• The phone app. Character.AI runs as a native app. AI Anyone runs in the browser on your phone or laptop, with nothing to install. If an app on your home screen is how you use it, that is a real difference.
• Price for a paid year. c.ai+ is shown at $94.99 a year. AI Anyone Pro is $20 a month. If you were going to pay anyway, theirs costs less over a year.
• More paid tiers. Its page shows three tiers (Free, lite and c.ai+), with more pins and more memory on the paid ones. AI Anyone has two plans, Free and Pro.

If those are the things that matter most to you, weigh them before you move.

What AI Anyone does differently

• Calling is part of every character. Every one of the 13,000+ characters can be called out loud from a phone or laptop browser. A free account includes 20 minutes every 30 days, and it comes back every 30 days. When you hang up, the call is written into your text chat, so the character's next typed reply knows what you said out loud.
• The free tier has no daily message cap. After 100 messages in a day, free chat moves to a lighter model until the next day. Pro keeps chat on the full model.
• No ads in your chat. On the free plan too.
• Make your own in one sentence. Describe a character in a line, and the rest is written for you to change. Keep it public, unlisted (only people with the link) or private. Or browse what people already made, like the fantasy and mythology characters.
• Bring the characters you made. Once you are signed in, the create page has a tab called Bring your character. Paste the fields you filled in on Character.AI (Name, Tagline, Description, Greeting, Definition), each into the box with the same name, or paste a character card, and it opens as a private draft you check before anything is published. Your past chats do not come across.
• Learn something with a character. Any character can teach you a topic as a short course, so a conversation can turn into lessons when you want it to.

And what it does not do: there is no phone app, and you need a free account to send a message. An email address or a Google account is enough, and no card is asked for.

What it costs

AI Anyone is free to start. Pro is $20 a month and adds 240 call minutes every 30 days and chat that stays on the full model. New accounts get a month of Pro free once they verify their email, with no card. If you pay and then cancel, cancelling stops the next charge, and you keep Pro until the end of the period you paid for.

Which one should you pick?

• Stay with Character.AI if you need a specific character that only exists there and you do not want to rebuild it, if you want a native phone app, or if the yearly c.ai+ price is what you are comparing on.
• Try AI Anyone if you want to call your characters out loud, if you want a free tier with no daily cap and no ads, or if you want to bring the characters you made into a place you can keep them private.
• Or try both. AI Anyone's free tier is enough to find out whether calling a character is something you want to keep doing.

Questions

Can I move my Character.AI characters? Characters you made, yes; your chats, no. Copy each character's fields from its edit page on Character.AI, then paste them into Bring your character on AI Anyone's create page. Step by step: how to move your Character.AI characters.

Do I need an account? You can browse every character without one. Sending a message needs a free account.

How old do I have to be? Chat on AI Anyone is 18+, based on the birth year you give at signup.

Is Character.AI shutting down? Not today. It says the platform remains up and running during the sale, and that if no bid keeps it running, it will be wound down (Character.AI blog).

Read the switcher's guide, then bring your first character