Apps like Chai: Frontier trades user-made bots for authored stories
Frontier's characters come from human-led visual novels, remember what you played, and stay to talk and date once the story ends.
Choose Chai if you want to build your own characters or browse a library of more than 25 million made by other users. Choose Frontier if you want a small set of human-led stories whose characters remember what you played and return changed in sequels.
Human-led stories, not an unmoderated bot firehose
Most character apps hand you a pile of user-made bots that nobody vetted. Quantity wins, craft loses. Personalities drift, the writing turns generic, and the slop piles up.
Frontier is a studio. Our stories are led by veteran writers with decades of experience and credits at studios you'd recognize, and a person signs off on everything that ships. That's the difference between a crafted world and an unmoderated feed, and it holds no matter what tools help along the way.
Written by seasoned pros
Veteran writers with decades of experience own each character's voice, backstory, and arc. It isn't a bot someone spun up in ten seconds.
Human in the loop
Nothing ships unchecked. A person crafts and approves every story before it reaches you.
Curated, not a firehose
Quality over quantity: a hand-picked catalogue instead of an endless wall of unmoderated bots.
Reddit users leaving Chai most often name emochi, and one who switched after four years on Chai says emochi is better. Another moved to Janitor AI for its fewer restrictions. Frontier is a different kind of replacement: you play human-led visual novels, unlock characters by getting through the story, then keep talking to them and date them, with the events you played as their memory.
Reviewers describe Chai bots losing the user's character name and context from three or four exchanges earlier by the seventh or eighth reply, and response quality that depends on how well each community member built the bot. One Reddit user says chats older than 30 days are removed. One App Store reviewer describes a free 'pieces' system capped at fifty a day, with one piece per message and five more for watching an ad. Chai says it trained its base model to lower the chance that a chat session ends, and that its Mixture-of-Experts research aims to increase user revenue and screentime.
Frontier gives up what Chai is built on. Its catalogue is small and hand-picked, you cannot create your own characters, and chat messages and character photos cost Quills unless you are on the top plan. In exchange, a person signs off on every story before it ships, authors mark which moments a character should remember, and sequels bring characters back changed by what you did.
Where Frontier wins
- Veteran writers lead every story and a person signs off before it ships, so a character's voice does not drift.
- Authors mark which moments matter and how much, so those moments become durable memories carried across branches, chapters and sequels.
- Characters write letters between chapters, and sequels bring them back changed by your choices.
- One currency, Quills, with a visible conversion and no price that moves depending on how attached you are.
Where Chai is strong
- Anyone can create a character, per Chai's Play listing, and keep it private or share it for everyone to talk to.
- Reviewers praise the no-code builder: fill in a name, a personality and an opening message, and the bot goes live immediately.
- Chai's August 2026 press release counts more than 25 million user-made characters, across a mobile app and a separate Chai Web product.
- Chai's Play listing says its chatbots reply with voices.
Frontier vs Chai, feature by feature
How we compare: we write these breakdowns by hand, concede where a rival is genuinely stronger, and review the copy quarterly. No paid placements, no auto-generated filler.
| Frontier | Chai | |
|---|---|---|
| Making your own character | Not offered | Yes, kept private or shared |
| Catalogue size | Small and hand-picked | Tens of millions of characters to browse |
| Character consistency | Human-led writing, signed off before release | Uneven from one bot to the next |
| Memory | Author-marked story events carried into chapters and sequels | Key details lost within a few replies |
| Story structure | Visual novels with chapters, letters and sequels | Open-ended chat with no set plot |
| Cost to start | Free to start; Quills for unlocks and chat | Free download with in-app purchases |
Which one should you choose?
Choose Frontier if
- You want a character's memory built from story moments an author marked as important, carried across chapters and sequels.
- You'd rather date a character you met inside a story than start a chat with a stranger.
- You want human-led stories with a person signing off before release, and you're happy with a small catalogue.
Choose Chai if
- You want to build your own character from a name, a personality and an opening message and start chatting immediately.
- You want to browse more than 25 million user-made characters or share your own with everyone.
- You want bots that reply with voices.
Frequently asked questions
What can I use to replace Chai?
The answer depends on what you used Chai for. Reddit users leaving Chai most often name emochi, and one switched to Janitor AI for its fewer restrictions. If you want story and memory more than an open sandbox, Frontier is the alternative: you play human-led visual novels, unlock their characters, then keep talking to them and date them.
Are there free apps like Chai?
Chai and Frontier both cost nothing to start at this review. The App Store lists Chai as free with in-app purchases. One App Store reviewer describes free use as fifty 'pieces' a day, with one piece per message and five more for watching an ad, and another says the subscription costs ten dollars a week or two hundred dollars a year. Frontier is free to download and start. Story unlocks and chat use Quills, monthly plans are available, and chat messages and character photos are metered unless you are on the top plan.
Is there an app like Chai with no filter?
Chai itself is the one praised for this. An App Store reviewer says they enjoy Chai for its lack of a filter, which users can choose to enable or not. One Reddit user moved to Janitor AI because it has fewer restrictions.
Does Frontier remember more than Chai?
Frontier remembers story events. Authors mark which events matter and how much, and those carry across branches, chapters and sequels as the character's memory, rather than a summarised chat log. Reviewers report Chai bots forgetting the user's character name by the seventh or eighth reply. One Play Store reviewer says their bots have some long-term memory but that Chai deletes bot messages after a stretch without chatting.
Can I make my own characters on Frontier?
No. Frontier has no user-generated characters, and every character comes from a human-led story. Chai is the better app for this: its Play listing says anyone can create a character and keep it private or share it.
Weighing up more than one app? See the full ranked comparison of the field.
Meet a character worth remembering
Download Frontier and start your first story free.