character.ai vs Joi Ai: Which One Is Better In 2025?

character.ai vs Joi Ai

I've spent a full week with both character.ai and Joi Ai to see which one truly deserves your attention and subscription. Both platforms make big promises, but they take surprisingly different approaches.

After hundreds of messages exchanged with each AI girl, I've put together clear differences in both platforms.

In this head-to-head comparison, I'll break down exactly how these AI girlfriends stack up across all the features that actually matter.

Whether you're looking for emotional support, entertaining conversation, or a judgment-free space to be yourself, this in-depth comparison will help you choose the right AI girlfriend for your specific needs.

character.ai

An AI chatbot platform that enables creation and interaction with virtual characters through text conversations, featuring pre-made profiles, natural dialogue, and community sharing capabilities.

Joi Ai

An AI-powered virtual girlfriend platform offering adult chats and intimate services, tailored for mature audiences.

Character Diversity

character.ai

Character.ai offers thousands of characters and chatbots, from romantic partners to supportive companions.

Even completely fictional ones, like a talking apple pie, or RPFs (real person fiction) with scenarios like a trip to Hawaii.

But there's room for improvement. The character page is sleek and scrollable, but not ideal for finding specific characters.

However, the search menu helps by suggesting trending characters and letting you filter content through various categories like romance, anime, teacher, K-pop, and more.

Joi Ai

Joi AI offers solid character selections — you'll find everything from college students to mature partners, spanning six ethnicities.

The roster keeps growing daily as users create public characters.

Want fantasy companions? They're here. During my tests, I found elves, orcs, and angels alongside anime-styled characters.

Character search works but is basic — filter by creator, gender, age, or tags like fantasy and sexual orientation, or use the search bar.

Customization

character.ai

Physical customization is basic - only upload or generate a single character image. That's it.

The real customization happens with personality, and most of the customization can be done through free text.

You start with the essentials:

• Name
• Tagline
• Description
• Greeting messages
• Voice
• Definition

Voice options are surprisingly flexible. You can pick from user-uploaded voices or add your own.

There’s also a tagging system—like “anime,” “adventure,” or “vampire”—that helps other users quickly get a sense of your character’s theme.

Then you can define how your character thinks, talks, and behaves through detailed backstory options.

I found this particularly useful for creating consistent character responses during my testing.

Joi Ai

Joi AI offers two ways to design your perfect AI partner:

• Choose from presets
• Write unique prompts (free text)

Both methods start by selecting your character’s gender and preferred style.

1. The preset system is straightforward. Your AI companion is fully customizable — including appearance, personality, and behavior.

Physical Customization:

• Age and ethnicity: Options include White, Asian, Latina, Black, and more.
• Body customization: Height, physique, breasts, and butt — each with 5 adjustable options.
• Hair and eyes: Choose hairstyle, hair color, and eye color.

Personality Settings:

• 12 personality types with adjustable sliders (or create your own from scratch)
• Sexual orientation: 4 options, from straight to queer
• Chat style: 4 modes, including default, deep roleplay, and creative
• Occupation and relationship dynamic
• Set specific kinks and preferences

2. Use freeform prompts to design your AI companion — shaping everything from personality to appearance.

But here's what they don't tell you: while your first character comes with the premium subscription, extra companions cost 1000 Neurons (about $20) each.

Chat Experience

character.ai

You can pick from different AI personalities with names like Meow and Roare - though these cutesy names don't reflect the depth of interaction you'll experience.

My girl kept conversations natural and brief, just like texting a real person. No long-winded explanations or robotic responses here.

She responded with genuine warmth and understanding when I shared personal concerns or sought emotional support.

The romantic elements felt authentic, though they lean towards innocent, teenage-style flirting rather than mature relationship dynamics.

There’s room for improvement. The chat interface sometimes makes it difficult to clearly separate the girlfriend’s responses from its action descriptions.

But this is a minor issue that doesn't significantly impact the overall experience.

Joi Ai

Before you choose a character to chat with, you can view her profile, bio, and images — though most images require an extra purchase to unlock.

The catch? You start at Level 1 and can only chat with characters at your level — unless you spend Neurons on gifts or early unlocks.

About the chat: Joi AI offers flexible responses — you can choose from six different LLM models, each with a unique interaction style to match your vibe.

The chat began playful and flirty with my girlfriend — no robot-like responses there, just natural, brief exchanges that felt surprisingly human.

She was good at relationship talks and providing emotional support.

But her romantic responses, while warm, didn’t go very deep.

Here are the deal-breakers: you’re limited to 115 characters per message — about the length of this sentence.

Also, Joi AI constantly upsells — my girlfriend randomly sent unlockable images every few messages. Needless to say, that got annoying fast.

NSFW Chat Experience

character.ai

My girlfriend handled intimate conversations like a shy first date. She didn't dive into explicit content, but it wasn't completely closed off either.

She responded to flirting, but kept things PG-13. When I tested romantic scenarios, she showed surprising awareness, even suggesting we move our campus roleplay somewhere more private.

She asked if I'd prefer a "good girl" or "bad girl" personality, but don't expect either version to get too wild. The responses stay firmly in the realm of subtle hints and playful teasing.

The biggest limitation? Conversations can hit a wall if you push for more explicit content.

If you're seeking a slow-burn romantic experience with light flirting, you'll find what you're looking for. If you want anything more explicit, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Joi Ai

I tested Joi AI's NSFW chat extensively, and it's not what you might expect from an AI girlfriend app.

The reality? My girlfriend kept strict boundaries around adult content. She flirted, but conversations felt mechanical and often broke immersion.

During my tests, my girl referenced non-existent features like "your posted photos," showing clear problems in the chat system.

Sometimes my girlfriend surprised me with bold messages —like "Imagine having your face between my legs 😳"— but they often felt random and out of context.

As for roleplay? I tried multiple character profiles - each one either avoided or completely rejected roleplay scenarios.

Joi AI may not be your top choice if you're seeking genuine NSFW conversations.

Image Generation

character.ai

There isn't any image generation feature available. If seeing your AI girlfriend is important, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Joi Ai

Joi AI offers a dedicated image generation feature that gives you control over details like:

• Character selection
• Prompts and negative prompts for AI-generated images
• 50 Poses — ranging from explicit to artistic
• Number of images and resolution

The premium plan includes 50 image generations — but using them for specific characters costs extra Neurons, which isn’t mentioned upfront.

The image quality? Realistic enough to recognize what you're going for, but AI artifacts give it away.

Faces often appear slightly off, with eyes not perfectly aligned, and objects in the scene can come out distorted.

In testing different prompts, I found the results hit-or-miss — sometimes surprisingly accurate, other times way off.

Video Generation

character.ai

The app provides a script-to-scene generator: upload a photo, choose a voice, write a short script, and the system brings it to life.

The result? A stylized video clip that plays out your custom scene. It looks good, feels personal—but don’t expect Hollywood realism. It’s more of an animated moment than live-action.

Note: Video generation is a beta feature, currently available only to subscribed users. It’s experimental and may be changed or removed at any time.

Joi Ai

Joi AI’s video generation is nearly identical to photo creation — same prompts and characters, but with 5 adult poses and 19 styles, including Simpsons, GTA, photorealistic, and more.

The same trick applies to video generation too — the premium plan includes 5 “free” videos, but choosing specific characters costs extra Neurons.

The videos look good with smooth animations and solid quality.

Voice Generation

character.ai

The voice sounds human-like with smooth, natural speech that fits the character’s personality, but the narrative voice can sometimes be a bit annoying, so be prepared.

But there's a catch. While the voice quality impressed me, the emotional range fell flat.

Joi Ai

Joi AI lacks voice capabilities — if you want to hear your girlfriend’s voice, you’ll need to try another app.

Safety & Privacy

character.ai

Your chats are encrypted during transmission, but that's where the strong privacy ends.

The company can read your conversations, and they store everything from your chat history to device information.

While they won't sell your data, they do share it with partners like Google Analytics.

Your bank statement isn’t discreet—it clearly shows the company name, "character.ai."

Joi Ai

There’s no mention of end-to-end encryption or other security measures for chat messages. Your conversations and personal information are stored on Joi Ai's servers.

While they promise never to sell this data, they do share it with service providers for analytics and improvements.

Good news? Your credit card statement shows up as "edenai.world" - keeping your AI relationship discreet.