Candy AI vs Utsuwa

Candy AI is an online chat application for conversations with fictional AI characters. Users can choose from over 100 characters or create a companion by selecting attributes such as appearance, voice, personality, and hobbies. The service supports text, images, videos, and voice notes, as well as voice conversations and personalized image and AI video generation. Conversations can adapt to a user's tone and retain information shared in chat. Roleplay and storytelling are available subject to the Community Guidelines. Candy AI works on Android, iOS, and the web without installation. A free plan and free trial are listed. The Premium — 1 Month plan is $9.99 a month for the first month, then renews monthly at €13.99; other listed options include Premium — 12 Months at $3.99 a year, Premium — 3 Months at $8.99 a month, Premium — every 2 weeks at $9.79 a month, and Premium — weekly at $5.60 a month. The service is intended for adults aged 18 or the age of majority in their jurisdiction, whichever applies. Its Privacy Notice says interactions may be used to develop AI and moderation systems, and chatbot messages may be shared with third-party LLM providers.

Utsuwa is a free, open-source AI companion app built around a 3D VRM avatar, voice, memory, and a relationship system. It supports models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, and xAI, along with OpenAI-compatible endpoints, Ollama, and LM Studio. Users can load their own VRM avatars. Local embeddings support semantic recall, and users can browse, search, add, or delete stored memories. Voice options include hosted and local services. The listed capabilities include voice conversations, persistent memory, proactive messages, and image or video chat. Utsuwa can run entirely on a user's machine with local models and voice services. Its maker says there are no accounts, analytics, ads, or tracking cookies, and conversations, memories, and settings stay on the device. In the hosted web app, cloud-provider requests may be relayed through Utsuwa servers; the maker says those servers do not store messages or API keys or log conversation content. Desktop messages go directly to the selected provider, but the desktop app is in beta and its builds are not code-signed. The maker states that Utsuwa is intended for adults aged 18 and over.