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Best AI companions where you build your own character
Companion apps where you can design and train your own character, ranked by editorial score with price and platform support.
The default starting point: unmatched variety and the most generous free tier in the category. Best for: Roleplay and chatting with fictional or public-figure characters.
If you want total control and zero subscription, this is where the advanced users live. Best for: Running your own companion UI with your own model.
The best pick for people who will actually fill in the backstory — lazy setup buys you a chatbot. Best for: One consistent companion with a detailed backstory.
A roleplay and creative-writing tool built on capable open models, with a scenario builder and image generation for the worlds you create. Best for: Writers who want long, coherent roleplay and story generation.
A gaming-focused companion that reads your screen and roleplays along, with voice, Live2D-style visuals and a Romantic mode on higher tiers. Best for: Gamers who want a companion that reacts to what is on screen.
A community-driven anime companion hub: build your own character or talk to thousands of user-made ones, with image generation baked into the chat. Best for: Anime-style companionship and browsing a large character library.
A romance-first companion with image generation and an optional mature mode — SFW by default. Best for: Romance roleplay with a fixed cast and an optional mature mode.
Formerly text-generation-webui: not a companion app, but the plumbing most local companion setups are built on. Best for: Running local models with a browser UI.
A lightweight character-chat app focused on a big community library and quick conversations, with image generation as a paid add-on. Best for: Casual chat with fan-made and original AI characters.
A story-driven isekai RPG where you spend credits on chat, image, music and video generation — no flat subscription, free Mana refreshes daily. Best for: An open-ended isekai adventure with generated media.
Common questions about this list
How many apps are on this list?
10 apps meet the criteria for “Best AI companions where you build your own character”. We would rather publish a short, honest list than pad it with apps that only half fit.
Which one should I pick first?
Character.AI tops this list with an editorial score of 4.4 out of 5 and costs $7.92/mo. That is a starting point, not a verdict — the card under each entry says who it actually suits.
What is the cheapest option here?
SillyTavern, at Free — and 9 of the 10 listed apps have a free tier you can try first.
Can I sort these by something else?
Yes. The category pages carry the full five-way filter — medium, orientation, price, platform and sort — and the numbers on this list match the numbers there, because both are computed from the same catalogue.