Character AI alternatives, compared on what happens to your chats

The Morse teamPublished October 19, 2026Facts checked October 19, 20267 min read

The best Character AI alternatives as of October 2026 are Morse, Nomi, Replika, Chai, and SillyTavern, and the most useful way to choose between them is to ask what each company may do with your chats if it's sold, how it trains on them, and how long it keeps them after you leave. Character.AI's Chapter 11 sale made all three questions practical, and every hosted alternative here answers them in its own privacy policy.

We read each alternative's privacy policy, terms, and plan or help pages on October 19, 2026, along with Character.AI's own policy and terms. The top Google results we checked that day compare apps on filters, memory, voice, and price. None set the sale clauses side by side, so the table below does.

Character AI alternatives compared, as of October 19, 2026

Every competitor cell links to that company's own page.

Why are people leaving Character.AI?

Its October 12 Chapter 11 filing put the company up for sale (Character.AI). Content and age limits were already pushing people out: its terms, last updated August 27, 2025, say it "may access, review, screen, edit, modify and delete your content at any time and for any reason" (Character.AI), and in October 2025 it announced the end of open-ended chat for users under 18 (Character.AI).

Which alternatives can pass your chats to a buyer?

Two of the three hosted companion apps say so plainly. Nomi, run by Glimpse.ai, Inc., writes: "If we were to sell the company, your personal information would be transferred to the successor or purchaser." It adds that during a possible sale, your "de-identified personal information may be shared with the potential purchaser during due diligence" (Nomi). Its terms also give Nomi a "royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, and transferable" license to what you write, transferable "to our successor or assign" (Nomi).

Replika's policy, last updated May 27, 2026, lists a "merger, consolidation, acquisition, reorganization, sale" of Luka, Inc., "including, in connection with a bankruptcy or similar proceedings," among the times it may share your data (Replika). That covers the situation Character.AI is in now.

Chai's privacy policy, last updated October 12, 2026, doesn't mention a sale or merger at all. It says your data is reachable by "specifically authorized staff" and by the suppliers that run the app (Chai).

Which alternatives train on your chats?

Chai does, openly. Its policy says it uses "personal data derived from your in-app conversations with chatbots to enhance and fine tune the artificial intelligence models," after removing personal identifiers, on the basis of its "legitimate interest" (Chai).

Replika narrows it. It takes "small portions of Messages and Content data" to train its "proprietary safety algorithms," anonymized first, and says that data "is not used to train third-party large language models." The outside model providers it uses are contractually barred from training their own models on your conversations (Replika).

Nomi never says it in a sentence, but its policy refers to "our training archives," which suggests your chats can end up in one (Nomi). Nomi earns credit elsewhere in the same policy: "We do not and will not sell or rent to any third party any of your personal information," and it says ad networks are "not employed currently."

How long do they keep your chats after you delete your account?

From about a month to several years, depending on the app and the kind of data.

• Nomi: your personal information is deleted "within 28 or so days," except "information that is in our training or communications archives," which "would no longer be attributable to you" (Nomi).
• Replika: messages and content for "up to 60 days after termination of the contract," and payment records and automatically collected data for "a minimum period of 10 years" (Replika).
• Chai: up to "the duration of the account and five (5) years following its deletion," longer for legal claims (Chai). You delete from Profile, then Settings, then Delete Account.

Which alternative fits how you roleplay?

Nomi suits people who want one companion that remembers them over months. It's adults only, and users in California see crisis resources when the AI detects expressions of self-harm (Nomi).

Replika suits people who want voice more than a library of characters: Replika Pro adds voice messaging, "background calls," roleplay during voice and AR calls, and premium voices (Replika). It promises it "will never share your conversations" with its advertising partners (Replika).

Chai is a phone app on iOS and Android built around bots other users make, paid for by subscriptions, in-app purchases, and advertising (Chai). It's adults only, checks age through Persona, and its models are designed to refuse sexually explicit content (Chai).

SillyTavern is a free, open-source interface you install yourself, and it keeps chats in a ./data folder on your machine (SillyTavern). You still need a model, and a cloud one reads every prompt; our guide to using AI privately covers running one locally.

How Morse keeps your characters on your device

A sale clause, a training archive, and a five-year retention window all need the company to hold your chats. On Morse, Characters, for roleplay and companion chats, keeps your character chats, the characters you make, and your personas encrypted in your browser, and our servers keep no messages (privacy policy). The Free plan has no cap on character messages, Morse is for adults only, and when a message in a character chat reads like suicidal thinking, crisis lines appear, a check done on your device.

In Chat, each conversation runs in a privacy mode you pick:

• Private, for long conversations on open-weight models. Morse has zero data retention agreements with its inference, search, and other providers.
• E2EE, for anything meant for you alone. Your browser verifies the enclave, run by a third-party provider, then seals each message so only it can read it, as long as the enclave hardware and attestation work as designed.
• Anonymous, for GPT, Claude, or Gemini without the provider knowing it's you. The provider may keep a message for a limited time to check for abuse.

Whatever the mode, Morse doesn't train AI on your content, sell your data, or show ads, and your device holds the only copy of your history, so keep a copy of any story you want; clearing your browser deletes it for good.

Choose an alternative or Morse

• Choose Nomi if you want one companion with long memory and accept that some of what you write stays in its training archives after you leave.
• Choose Replika if you want voice messages and calls with a single companion, and a 60-day window after you leave is fine.
• Choose Chai if you want a large library of community bots in a phone app, and don't mind ads on the free plan or conversations used to fine-tune its models.
• Choose SillyTavern if you'll install software, connect your own model, and want chats in a folder you control.
• Choose Morse if you want character chat with nothing to install, unlimited character messages free, and chats kept encrypted on your device instead of on a company's servers, with no training, selling, or ads.

Start free: the Free plan has no cap on character messages.

Morse publishes this comparison. We've tried to keep it fair; if something's wrong or out of date, email hello@trymorse.ai.

Character.AI is a trademark of Character Technologies, Inc. Morse is not affiliated with or endorsed by Character Technologies, Inc.