Backyard AI vs DreamGen

Backyard AI offers AI-powered characters for fictional text and voice chats, including text adventures, interactive stories, and roleplaying. Its Community Hub lets users explore thousands of characters, which can be customized with lorebooks, an author's note, grammars, and model parameters. Group chats can include up to four characters, and voice calls are listed as a feature. The Free plan costs nothing and includes 300 messages per week, one model, and 16k maximum memory. The free desktop app runs local models offline; the listed download is for macOS Intel. Local models can also be accessed from a mobile browser or iOS app through opt-in tethering. Cloud subscriptions provide hosted models, with choices and limits varying by tier. Standard costs $12 a month and includes unlimited messages with Standard models; Pro costs $35 a month and includes Standard and Pro models with a 100,000-token maximum context. Backyard AI supports GGUF models, but not FP16, GPTQ, or AWQ files. Its listed platforms are Android, iOS, macOS, and web.

DreamGen is a web service for interactive AI role-play and story writing. Users can start from a scenario or create a world, then steer a plot through conversations with multiple characters. Scenario controls let users set the plot, setting, style, characters, locations, objects, opening, and example interactions. Its Scenario Wizard guides creation of scenario ideas, characters, settings, and plot outlines. A separate story writer generates stories across genres, and DreamGen’s documentation includes a guide to image generation. The role-play guide describes a mobile interface with access to the scenario editor, settings, and role-play assistant. DreamGen says its main generative models run on its own infrastructure, though some requests may be routed to vetted third-party providers for particular functions or conditions. It says user data is not used to train or improve models unless users opt in; consent is off by default. The service is intended for people at least 18 and the age of majority where they live. A free plan is available; paid plans start at $7.83 a month.