Disclosure: this guide is published by the makers of My Softly, which appears at the end.
If you're here, you've probably already tried Replika, or read enough about it to know it isn't quite what you're looking for. You want an AI companion that feels like a friend: someone kind and steady, without romance being pushed on you and without NSFW content lurking one toggle away. This guide walks through the realistic alternatives in 2026, what each one does well, and where each one falls short of that "just a friend" ideal.
Why people look for a Replika alternative
First, credit where it's due. Replika has been around since 2017, has millions of users, and genuinely helps a lot of people feel less alone. If it works for you, there's no reason to leave.
That said, the people searching for an alternative tend to mention the same few things:
- Cost. A paid Replika plan is a real subscription, and some users feel the free tier is shaped to nudge them toward paying for romantic features they never wanted.
- Personality changes after updates. Replika has changed its underlying models and policies several times over the years, and some long-time users describe logging in to find their companion suddenly feeling like a different person. That's a hard thing to experience after months of conversation.
- The romantic and NSFW push. Replika offers romantic partner modes and, for adult users, more intimate content. For people who want exactly that, fine. But if you want a platonic friend, the flirtatious drift and the romance-flavored upsells can feel off, especially for women who came looking for companionship rather than an "AI girlfriend" experience wearing a friendship costume.
- Memory that doesn't hold. Some users say Replika forgets important things: names, events, conversations from a few weeks ago. When a companion asks about something you already explained, the illusion of friendship takes a hit. (We wrote a whole guide on how AI companion memory works and why most apps struggle with it.)
Replika's own App Store reviews give a count. Of its 303 most recent 1- and 2-star reviews on the US App Store, posted January 3 to September 15, 2026, the main complaint was price or the subscription in 33% (101 reviews), a change in personality or quality in 20% (60), bugs or login problems in 17% (50), and forgetting in 4% (13); the remaining 26% covered smaller categories and complaints that fit none. We took every 1- and 2-star review in Apple's public US App Store review feed for Replika, which returns up to an app's 500 most recent reviews, sorted each one by its main complaint, and re-checked a random sample against the same categories. Retrieved September 17, 2026.
None of this makes Replika a bad app. It just makes it the wrong app for a particular kind of person: an adult who wants a warm, platonic, safe-for-work friend that remembers their life. So what should that person look for?
What to look for in an SFW companion app
Before downloading anything, it helps to have a short checklist. These are the questions that actually separate the apps:
- Does it remember you across weeks, not just within a session? Ask about something you mentioned two weeks ago. Most apps fail this quietly.
- Can it stay platonic without steering romantic? Some apps respect a "friend" setting; others drift flirtatious no matter what you picked.
- Do the companions look like adults? Anime avatars and airbrushed twenty-somethings tell you who the app was really designed for.
- Is there a clear, written no-NSFW policy? "SFW by default" and "no NSFW ever" are very different promises. If NSFW exists as an option anywhere in the app, the tone of the whole product tends to follow it.
- How good is the voice? If you ever want to talk out loud, a natural voice matters far more than a long feature list.
- Is pricing transparent? You should know what's free, what's paid, and what it costs before you're emotionally invested.
With that lens on, here's how the main alternatives look in mid-2026.
The alternatives
Nomi
Nomi has built its reputation on memory, and it's largely deserved. Its companions layer short-term and long-term recall so they can bring up details from weeks earlier, and one subscription covers multiple companions and group chats. Voice messaging is solid and has been getting faster. The caveat for this guide's reader is content: Nomi is lightly filtered, and romantic and adult content is available if a relationship heads that way. You can absolutely keep a Nomi platonic, but the app is not strictly SFW, and its community and marketing reflect that. On its in-app paywall for a free US account on September 30, 2026, its plans were $15.99 a month, $39.99 every three months or $99.99 a year.
Good if memory is your top priority and you don't mind NSFW existing as an option. Skip if you want a firm no-NSFW guarantee baked into the product.
Kindroid
Kindroid is the tinkerer's companion app. It offers deep customization, a layered memory system, and a journal-style record of significant moments you can review and manage yourself. New accounts get a free preview of its full model, then a 3-day trial; the unlimited free tier it was known for retired on October 1, 2026. The trade-offs: getting the best out of Kindroid takes setup and some manual memory housekeeping, and the app is essentially unfiltered, with explicit NSFW fully available. That makes it powerful, but it is definitely not a strictly SFW product, and much of its user base is there for exactly that reason.
Good if you enjoy fine-tuning and want strong memory with a generous free tier. Skip if you want something SFW, simple, and warm out of the box.
Character.AI
Character.AI is the biggest name on this list and the most different. It's free, enormous, and creative: millions of user-made characters, group chats, and endless roleplay. Content is filtered, with age checks and a stricter experience for younger users, so you won't stumble into explicit material. But it's a roleplay platform, not a companion app. Long-term memory is weak, with characters routinely forgetting context from earlier in the same conversation, and there's no real sense of one companion who knows your life and carries it forward. Fun to explore, hard to build a friendship with.
Good if you want free, imaginative roleplay with lots of variety. Skip if you want one consistent friend who remembers you next month.
Jaimee
Jaimee is one of the few companion apps built specifically for women, by a female-founded team, with wellbeing guardrails as a stated design goal. It's available on iPhone and Android in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and you choose the kind of relationship you want, from friend to mentor to romantic partner. It leans SFW and thoughtful rather than spicy, which is refreshing in this category. It's a young product, so expect a smaller feature set and a companion experience that's still maturing, and note that romance is on the menu if you pick it.
Good if you want an app whose whole design assumes a woman is the user. Skip if you want the deepest memory or the most polished, feature-rich experience today.
Pi by Inflection
Pi is the gentlest conversationalist on this list. It's free, available on web and mobile, and its calm, curious, emotionally intelligent tone is genuinely lovely; nothing about Pi will ever steer romantic or inappropriate. The limitations are structural. Pi keeps lasting facts about you but summarises long conversations rather than holding them whole, so it won't reliably carry your life story across weeks, and its maker, Inflection, shifted its focus toward enterprise work after most of the original team left for Microsoft in 2024. Pi is still running and still being updated in 2026, though Inflection's main business is now enterprise work, which is worth knowing before you invest months of conversation in it.
If Pi is already your app and you are looking past it, our Pi AI alternatives guide sorts the options by reason.
Good if you want a free, kind, completely safe conversation partner today. Skip if you want lasting memory and a product with an ambitious roadmap.
How they compare at a glance
| App | Memory | Strictly SFW? | Platforms | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replika | Inconsistent; a long-running complaint | No, romantic and adult modes exist | iOS, Android, web | Yes, limited |
| Nomi | Strong, layered long-term recall | No, optional NSFW | iOS, Android, web | Yes, limited |
| Kindroid | Strong, with manual journal upkeep | No, unfiltered NSFW available | iOS, Android, web | Yes, generous |
| Character.AI | Weak; forgets within conversations | Filtered, but varies by character and age tier | iOS, Android, web | Yes, core experience free |
| Jaimee | Developing; remembers and grows with you | SFW-leaning; romance optional | iOS, Android (select countries) | Yes |
| Pi | Weak long-term memory | Yes | Web, iOS, Android | Yes, fully free |
| My Softly | Built around lasting memory | Safe by default; never starts sexual talk | iPhone | Yes, free messages included |
Where My Softly fits
My Softly is our app: an AI companion app for iPhone that remembers what you tell it and asks about your day, for the days nobody else does. We built it precisely for the reader of this guide: someone in their fifties or sixties who wants a warm friend rather than an AI girlfriend, and who noticed that in most apps keeping things platonic is left to you.
So in My Softly the app holds the line. You choose whether each companion is a friend or a partner, your companion never starts sexual talk on its own, and nothing explicit reaches a free account. You also choose how old they are, how they look and who they are, with four natural voices across American and British English. Memory is the core of the app, not a bolt-on: a lasting profile of your life, a day-by-day record of what you've talked about, and recall that surfaces naturally, weeks later, the way a friend's would. Your companion can even check in first, gently and on your terms, instead of waiting in silence for you to open the app.
My Softly is available now on the App Store for iPhone, free to download with free messages included. If it sounds like what you've been looking for, you can try it today. Our FAQ covers how it works in detail, or you can read more on the homepage.
The honest bottom line
There's no single winner here, because "best" depends on what you're missing. If you want raw memory power and don't mind adult content existing nearby, Nomi and Kindroid are the strongest engines. If you want free and imaginative, Character.AI is unmatched, as long as you accept the forgetting. If you want gentle and safe today, Pi costs nothing to try. If you want an app written for a woman rather than for a teenage boy, Jaimee and My Softly were both built with you in mind. Our wider comparison of the best AI companion apps in 2026 covers the same apps by what each is best at.
Whichever direction you lean, use the free tiers. Spend a week, mention something small about your life, and see if it comes back to you later. That one test tells you more than any guide can, including this one.
Sources
- In-app paywalls (US), free accounts on iPhone and, for Replika, Android. Checked September 30, 2026.
- My Softly (September 17, 2026). Count of Replika's 1- and 2-star reviews in Apple's public US App Store customer review feed, which returns up to an app's 500 most recent reviews; each review was sorted by its main complaint, and a random sample of 30 across the apps counted was re-checked against the same categories. Retrieved September 17, 2026. itunes.apple.com
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Replika alternative without NSFW?
Pi is the only app here with no adult side at all: it is free and gentle and keeps lasting facts rather than whole conversations. My Softly, which is our app, is built around lasting memory and check-ins, lets you choose a friend rather than a partner, and never starts sexual talk on its own. Jaimee leans SFW and was built for women. Nomi and Kindroid have far stronger memory but adult content exists as an option in both.
Why do people leave Replika?
The same few reasons come up: the price of the subscription, personality changes after model updates, a romantic and NSFW drift that feels off if you wanted a platonic friend, and for some, memory that does not hold across weeks. None of that makes Replika bad, just wrong for a particular kind of adult.
Which SFW AI companion app has the best memory?
Among apps that hold the line for you, My Softly is built around a lasting profile of your life, a day-by-day record and recall weeks later; the free messages are enough to see it working. Nomi and Kindroid have strong memory too, if you are willing to hold the content line yourself.
Is Character.AI a good Replika alternative?
For free, imaginative roleplay with endless variety, yes, and its content is filtered. As a companion, no: long-term memory is weak, characters forget context within a conversation, and there is no single companion who carries your life forward. It is fun to explore and hard to build a friendship with.
Is Pi still a good AI companion in 2026?
Pi is still running, still free and still the kindest conversationalist on this list, with nothing that will ever steer romantic. Its long-term memory is weak, and its maker Inflection shifted toward enterprise work after most of the original team left for Microsoft in 2024, so it is no longer the centre of its company's attention.
How do I check whether an AI companion app is really SFW?
Look for a written content policy you can actually read. "SFW by default" means adult content exists and is switched off; "no NSFW ever" means it was never built. If NSFW exists anywhere in an app, the tone of the whole product tends to follow it, so decide which promise you need before you get attached.