If you are searching for a Chub AI alternative, you probably like parts of what Chub does (character cards, open model choice, adult roleplay) but not everything that comes with it: the setup, the API keys, the presets, or the bill for the good models. The good news is that you have options on both sides of that trade.
Some alternatives are hosted platforms where you sign up and start chatting in a minute. Others are free, open-source front-ends you run yourself, where you keep full control and pick your own model. This guide covers both, with real September 2026 prices and plan details, so you can choose by what actually matters to you.
Based on each vendor’s pricing and help pages and published user reports, as of September 2026.
| Name | Best for | Free tier | Paid from (Sept 2026) | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cherrypop.ai | Uncensored chat plus images of your character | Yes | See pricing on the site | Web, mobile browser |
| SillyTavern | Full control with any model you choose | Free, open-source (model costs are yours) | No subscription | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, Docker |
| Janitor AI | Free community roleplay | Yes, unlimited chats on standard models | $12.99/mo (Janitor+) | Web, iOS, Android |
| SpicyChat | Hosted roleplay with tiered memory | Yes, 4,096-token context | $5.95/mo or $60/yr | Web, Android (APK) |
| RisuAI | A friendlier open-source front-end | Free, open-source (model costs are yours) | No subscription | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, web |
| KoboldCpp | Fully local, private chat | Free, open-source | No subscription | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| OurDream | Image and video generation | Yes, 1 dreamcoin per message | $9.99/mo billed yearly, or $19.99/mo | Web |
| Candy.ai | AI girlfriend chat with images and video | 5 messages total | $3.99/mo billed yearly, or $13.99/mo | Web |
What Chub AI Is, and Why People Look for a Chub AI Alternative
Chub AI is a character-card platform and chat front-end. Its own guide describes it as a service that lets you talk to characters through large language models accessed over APIs, and says plainly that Chub is uncensored. You write or pick a character card (a set of prompts that defines a personality and scenario), then connect a model to power it: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, NovelAI, a Kobold or Ooba backend, or Chub’s own paid models. As of September 27, 2026, its subscription page lists one plan at $20 a month, paid in crypto only, with one-time trial credits for new users.
That flexibility is also the reason people start looking elsewhere. The most common reasons:
- Setup. Getting good results means choosing an API, writing or importing a system prompt and post-history instructions, and tuning presets. Power users love it; many people just want to chat.
- Cost of the good models. The strongest replies come from Chub’s $20-a-month subscription or your own API key, which you pay for per use.
- Privacy questions. Chub’s own guide warns that free third-party reverse proxies may log your data and leak information. Anyone who went that route has a reason to rethink where their chats go.
- Wanting more than text. Some people want a companion with images built into the same place they chat, without wiring up extensions.
Coming from Character.AI rather than Chub? Our Character.AI alternatives guide starts from that side of the fence.
1. Cherrypop.ai
Cherrypop.ai is the Chub AI alternative for people who want adult roleplay without the setup. There are no API keys, presets or backends to configure: you open the site, pick a character from a large catalog of ready-made characters (women, men and trans characters, in realistic and anime styles), and start an uncensored chat or roleplay. The catalog covers many personality types, including tsundere, yandere and kuudere characters.
If you liked writing your own cards on Chub, the create-your-own wizard at cherrypop.ai/create lets you build a character from scratch. You can also generate images of your character, realistic or anime, including NSFW, in the same place you chat. It runs in the browser and works on your phone with no app install, and access is 18+ only, with age checks where the law requires them (go.cam). The honest trade-off: it is a hosted platform, so if connecting your own model or API key is the whole point for you, a front-end like SillyTavern is built for that.
Key Highlights:
- Uncensored AI chat and roleplay, no API key or preset setup
- Large catalog of ready-made female, male and trans characters
- Realistic and anime styles, including tsundere, yandere and kuudere types
- Create-your-own character wizard
- Image generation of your character, including NSFW
- Free tier; paid plans unlock more messages, images and features (see pricing on the site)
Who It’s Best For:
- Chub users tired of managing API keys and presets
- Anyone who wants chat and character images in one place
- Mobile users who prefer a browser over an app install
- People who want to build their own character without learning prompt formats
2. SillyTavern
SillyTavern is the closest thing to Chub’s philosophy, taken all the way. Its documentation describes it as a locally installed interface for text generation models, image generation engines and text-to-speech, built for power users who want as much control over their prompts as possible. It started in February 2023 as a fork of TavernAI, is free and open-source under the AGPL-3.0 license, and lists over 300 contributors.
It is built around the same character-card concept Chub uses, so the way you think about characters carries over. The catch is that SillyTavern is only an interface: you still need a model. You can use AI Horde to start chatting straight away, connect a cloud API, or run a model on your own machine (the docs recommend an NVIDIA 3000-series card with at least 6GB of VRAM for local inference). Chub’s own guide notes that its subscription API works in any front-end that accepts an OpenAI-style endpoint, so existing Chub subscribers can keep that subscription and use it here.
Key Highlights:
- Free and open-source (AGPL-3.0), with no subscription
- Runs on anything with NodeJS 20 or higher; installers for Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and Docker
- Works with AI Horde, OpenAI-compatible APIs, KoboldAI and many other backends
- World Info (lorebooks), group chats with several characters, and user personas
- Extensions for image generation, text-to-speech, auto-summary and web search
- Chats stay on your own device when you pair it with a local model
Who It’s Best For:
- Chub power users who want even more control
- People who already pay for an API or run local models
- Privacy-minded users who want chats on their own hardware
- Tinkerers who enjoy presets, scripting and custom themes
3. Janitor AI
Janitor AI is a hosted platform for community-made characters, and its free tier is the main draw. Per its help center, free accounts get unlimited chats with the community’s bots, access to the standard chat models and a context limit of around 9,000 tokens. Chats are private by default unless you share them, and if you connect your own API key, its FAQ says the key is stored only on your device.
Janitor+ is the only paid plan, at $12.99 a month. It adds 5x more context for better memory, priority access for faster replies, monthly swipes (regenerations) with the best models, and a badge. If you cancel, the subscription stays active until the end of the billing period and then reverts to the free tier; subscriptions are generally non-refundable. App-store subscriptions must be cancelled in the App Store or Google Play, not on the web. For a deeper look at the options around it, see our Janitor AI alternatives guide.
Key Highlights:
- Free tier with unlimited chats on standard models
- Around 9,000 tokens of context on the free tier
- One paid plan: Janitor+ at $12.99/month with 5x context and priority replies
- Monthly swipes with its best models on Janitor+
- Bring-your-own API key option, with keys stored on your device
- Web plus iOS and Android apps
Who It’s Best For:
- Chub users who want free hosted chat without a key
- People who like community-made characters
- Budget users who may upgrade later for memory
- Anyone who wants the same account on web and phone
4. SpicyChat
SpicyChat is a hosted roleplay platform where the differences between plans come down mostly to memory, reply length and model access. The free tier gives you 4,096 tokens of context, replies up to 180 tokens and 3 user personas. There are no free trials; the avatar generator in the character creator is available free and, per SpicyChat, uses the same image technology as paid plans.
Prices changed on September 8, 2026. Get A Taste is $5.95/month or $60/year and adds the Memory Manager and 10 personas. True Supporter is $19.95/month or $199.95/year and doubles context to 8,192 tokens, raises replies to 300 tokens, and adds Semantic Memory 2.0, in-conversation images, advanced models and 50 personas. I’m All In is $29.95/month or $299.95/year for up to 32K tokens of context (capped by each model’s limit), all models including SpicyXL, text-to-speech, generation settings, priority generation and 100 personas. Existing subscribers keep their old price while the plan stays active and unchanged. If you cancel, you keep access to the end of the paid period, then drop to the free tier with nothing deleted.
Key Highlights:
- Free tier with 4,096-token context and 180-token replies
- Get A Taste from $5.95/month adds the Memory Manager
- True Supporter ($19.95/month) adds in-chat images and advanced models
- I’m All In ($29.95/month) adds up to 32K context, text-to-speech and generation settings
- Annual plans on every tier
- Account returns to free, with nothing deleted, after cancelling
Who It’s Best For:
- People who want hosted roleplay without API keys
- Users who care most about memory and context length
- Anyone who wants to start cheap and scale up by tier
- Roleplayers who want generation settings without self-hosting
5. RisuAI
RisuAI (Risu for short) is an open-source AI roleplay client that sits between Chub-style complexity and a simple hosted app. Its site pitches a simple interface for light users with advanced features underneath for power users, and it runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and the web. The code is on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 license.
Like SillyTavern, it is a front-end: you connect the model, from OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter or others, and pay that provider directly. What stands out is its memory tooling (lorebooks plus long-term memory systems it calls HypaMemory and SupaMemory), emotion images that change with the character’s expression, regex scripts for custom output, and built-in translation so you can roleplay in your own language with a model that works best in another.
Key Highlights:
- Free, open-source (GPL-3.0)
- Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and web versions
- Supports OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter and other APIs
- Lorebooks and long-term memory compression
- Emotion images, group chats and text-to-speech
- Automatic translation of input and output
Who It’s Best For:
- Chub users who want a front-end that is easier than SillyTavern
- People who roleplay in a language other than English
- Long-story writers who need memory tools
- Users who switch between phone and desktop
6. KoboldCpp
KoboldCpp keeps everything on your own computer: nothing has to leave it. It is a single, self-contained program that runs open-weight language models (GGUF files) on your own CPU or GPU, with no installation and no external dependencies. It comes with the KoboldAI Lite interface built in, which has chat, adventure, instruct and story-writer modes, plus memory, world info and author’s notes.
It can load Tavern-format character cards, so characters you have built elsewhere can come with you. Recent versions also bundle local image generation (Stable Diffusion, SDXL, Flux and others), speech-to-text and text-to-speech. It exposes OpenAI-compatible and other API endpoints, which means you can also run KoboldCpp as the backend and SillyTavern or RisuAI as the front-end. The limit is your hardware: reply quality and speed depend on the model your machine can hold.
Key Highlights:
- Free, open-source (AGPL-3.0), single file, no install
- Ready-made builds for Windows, macOS and Linux
- Bundled KoboldAI Lite interface with several chat and story modes
- Loads Tavern character cards
- Local image generation and text-to-speech
- Can act as the backend for SillyTavern or RisuAI
Who It’s Best For:
- Anyone who wants chats that never touch a server
- People with a capable GPU
- Users who do not want any subscription
- Tinkerers testing different open models
7. OurDream
OurDream is an adult AI companion platform with a strong focus on images and video, and it works on a coin system. Free users pay 1 dreamcoin per chat message and cannot use most features. Premium is $19.99 billed monthly with 1,000 dreamcoins a month, or $119.88 billed once a year ($9.99/month) with a 1,000-coin instant bonus and 1,000 every month. Deluxe is $59.99 month to month or $29.99/month billed $359.88 yearly, with 5,000 coins a month, “Free thinking models” and “3x chat memory”.
On a subscription, standard chats cost no coins, while the Genius models cost 1 coin per response, image generation costs 10 coins per 2 images, and video costs 100 coins per 5 seconds. Its help center says you keep access until the end of the billing period after cancelling, that cancellation does not trigger an automatic refund, and that reactivating starts a new subscription without restoring previously unused coins. Our best AI companion apps roundup compares it with the mainstream companion apps too.
Key Highlights:
- Premium: $19.99/month, or $9.99/month billed yearly ($119.88); Deluxe from $29.99/month yearly
- 1,000 dreamcoins a month on Premium, 5,000 on Deluxe
- Subscriber chats on standard models cost no coins
- Image generation at 10 coins per 2 images
- Video generation at 100 coins per 5 seconds
- Access continues to the end of the paid period after cancelling
Who It’s Best For:
- People who want images and video more than long text roleplay
- Users comfortable budgeting with coins
- Anyone paying yearly to get the lower monthly rate
- Companion fans who want no setup at all
8. Candy.ai
Candy.ai is an AI girlfriend platform with chat, images, voice and video, run by EverAI (that is the name on your bank statement). The free tier is small: 5 messages in total across all characters, one custom character and one image. Premium unlocks unlimited text messages and 100 tokens a month, which pay for images, video, voice messages, calls and creating custom characters.
Premium costs $13.99 billed monthly, $8.99/month on the 3-month plan, or $3.99/month on the 12-month plan. Premium Plus, its newer tier, raises that to 330 tokens a month and adds user personas, 20 memory slots, chat customization and early access to new characters; its price is not shown on the public plans page. Per its terms, remaining tokens expire when a subscription ends and do not carry over. Refunds are only possible within 24 hours of payment and not if more than 20 tokens have been used.
Key Highlights:
- Premium: $13.99/month, $8.99/month quarterly or $3.99/month yearly
- Unlimited text messages on any paid plan
- 100 tokens a month on Premium, 330 on Premium Plus
- Images, video, voice messages and calls paid with tokens
- Premium Plus adds personas and 20 memory slots
- Tokens expire when the subscription ends
Who It’s Best For:
- People who want an AI girlfriend experience out of the box
- Users who value images and video alongside chat
- Anyone willing to commit to a yearly plan for the lowest rate
- People who do not want to write their own character prompts
Chub AI Alternatives: FAQ
What is the best Chub AI alternative?
It depends on why you are leaving. If you want uncensored adult chat with no setup and images included, a hosted platform like Cherrypop.ai is the shortest path. If you want even more control than Chub gives you, SillyTavern or RisuAI with your own model is the natural next step. If you want free hosted chat, Janitor AI’s free tier is the usual pick.
What is the best unrestricted AI?
For no-setup chat, hosted adult platforms such as Cherrypop.ai, SpicyChat and Janitor AI allow adult roleplay within their own terms of service. If you would rather keep everything on your own computer, a local setup (KoboldCpp, alone or behind SillyTavern) runs an open model on your own hardware, so your chats never leave your machine.
Is Chub AI monitored?
Only lightly, by Chub’s own account. Its guide says the service is uncensored and that it does not restrict in any meaningful way the characters posted or the kinds of interactions users have. Your chats are still stored on its servers to run the service, so read its privacy policy before you share anything personal. If you connect your own API key, your prompts also go to that model provider under its policies. Chub’s own guide warns that free reverse proxies may log your data and leak information. If you do not want any third party involved, run a local model with KoboldCpp or SillyTavern.
Can I use my character cards on other platforms?
Often, yes. SillyTavern is built around the same character-card format, and KoboldCpp loads Tavern character cards directly. Hosted platforms usually have their own character creators instead; on Cherrypop.ai you can rebuild a character with the create-your-own wizard.
Is there a free Chub AI alternative?
SillyTavern, RisuAI and KoboldCpp are free and open-source, though any cloud model you connect may cost money. Janitor AI and SpicyChat both have free tiers, and Cherrypop.ai has a free tier too.
The Bottom Line
Chub is a toolbox, and the right alternative depends on which part of the toolbox you want to keep. If you want to drop the setup and still have an uncensored companion with images of your character, start with Cherrypop.ai. If you want more control, SillyTavern, RisuAI or KoboldCpp give you the whole stack. And if price is the deciding factor, compare the plan details above: the lowest monthly figure is often a yearly plan billed upfront.