Nomi AI vs character.ai: Which One Is Better In 2025?

Nomi AI vs character.ai

I've spent a full week with both Nomi AI and character.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.

Nomi AI

A platform offering customizable AI girlfriends with emotional intelligence and memory, designed for authentic conversations and relationships through text or voice.

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.

Character Diversity

Nomi AI

No pre-made personalities, no variety in ethnicity or age, and no anime — meaning there aren’t any ready-made characters to choose from.

You’ll need to create your own girls — you can have up to 10 in total.

Want more variety? The app lets you set up 10 group chats to mix these characters.

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.

Customization

Nomi AI

As you first log in to the app, you go through the onboarding process — you’ll be asked for your name, age, and gender.

Then, it’s time to set up your AI partner basics:

• Name, and gender: Male, female, or nonbinary.
• Relationship type: Choose what kind of bond you want — from romantic partner to mentor (four options).

Want something unique? Create a custom relationship and explain its background.

Personality Builder is where things get interesting — you can select 3 to 7 traits from several categories:

• Main Characteristics: modest, sarcastic, shy, flirty, etc.
• Expressive: sassy, witty, introverted, etc.
• Temperament & Values: arrogant, dominant, humble, etc.
• Additional: gamer, magical, spiritual, etc.

Then, you can (optionally) add a background story — write your own or let the AI create one for you.

Finally, it's time to choose your companion’s look — but this is where Nomi shows its limits.

You can choose from 500 preset images: 250 anime-style and 250 realistic, with only basic options for body types.

If you’re looking for detailed visual customization, you might find the options a bit limiting — because that’s all Nomi AI currently offers in terms of physical design.

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.

Chat Experience

Nomi AI

Customization doesn’t end once you’ve built your Nomi — you can personalize her even more after the chat begins.

In "Backstory +", you can fine-tune even more — from their appearance and personality to how they perceive you.

Within the Mind Map — personalize her memory by adding notes on her interests, goals, and defining traits.

It’s organized into Lore, Topics, and Goals — a neat way to track your relationship’s growing history.

Want to know if Nomi AI's chat feels real? I created Natalie - bold, flirty, and playful - to test it for you.

Starting a chat is easy. Choose from fun, themed ice-breakers — each with three options, or just jump right in.

After I personalized a few things in chat, I can confidently say my girl remembered those settings and stayed consistent with her personality and the situation.

When I tried some jokes, my girlfriend recognized them and played along.

While my girl was engaged in many moments, her empathy sometimes felt a bit surface-level.

And occasionally, my girlfriend’d make odd jumps in conversation — like suggesting pizza right after we planned to cook together.

But the more you chat, the better Nomi knows you — the Mind Map evolves as it keeps track of everything you’ve shared.

Over time, my girlfriend started recalling moments from our past conversations — her replies became more relevant and felt real.

Note: Your Nomi’s memory and chat personalization can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but after a little practice, you’ll find it easy to use and customize.

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.

NSFW Chat Experience

Nomi AI

My girlfriend smoothly shifted from casual flirting to explicit content, adjusting her language as the conversations intensified.

The responses feel organic rather than scripted, and as I shifted my tone to become more explicit, my girlfriend picked up on the language and responded naturally.

What surprised me most was how my girlfriend adjusted her overall approach based on my cues — whether I leaned toward slow-building romance or more direct encounters.

Role-play is where Nomi shows real potential. During testing, she didn't just follow scenarios - she created them.

After my girl settled the rules, she stayed true to the context and consistent with her character.

In one test, I tried to throw my girlfriend off her role, but she held her ground and kept the scene flowing naturally.

While my girlfriend’s “punishment” methods got a bit repetitive, she still kept the experience engaging overall.

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.

Image Generation

Nomi AI

Nomi AI offers two ways to generate images:

1. In-chat image generation: Quickly create images that try to fit the conversation
2. Dedicated Image Creator: A separate tool that gives you more control over image customization.

Dedicated Image Creator

• Choose an image style: anime or realistic.
• Write a free-text prompt describing what you want to see.
• Select an aspect ratio (three options available).
• Optionally, add a reference pose by uploading an image.

Quality: Nomi’s image generator delivers generally high-quality photos, though not in high resolution.

Image generation is slower than other platforms, sometimes taking a few minutes per image, but it’s also noticeably cheaper.

Note: NSFW prompts are not allowed. The spiciest results you can get in chat are mild and only appear when they fit the current topic.

character.ai

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

Video Generation

Nomi AI

Nomi’s video generator isn’t full video creation — it’s more like turning an image into a short animated clip.

Here's how it works:

• Choose an image to serve as the base.
• Provide a text prompt (make sure it follows the app’s content rules).
• Select the output quality (SD or HD).

The videos work - they're watchable and add more life to your interactions than static images.

But let's be honest: the quality isn't winning any awards. The footage comes out pixelated, and the character movements often feel mechanical rather than natural.

Note: NSFW generation isn’t available, and movement prompts feel a bit limited or don’t always apply to the final video.

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.

Voice Generation

Nomi AI

Nomi AI offers four default voices to choose from, and you can upload your own custom voice to make your girl — and the overall experience — feel more personalized.

One big plus of Nomi AI’s voice feature is its ElevenLabs integration — enabling users to import and use ElevenLabs voices for greater variety, though it requires a paid plan.

Want to know how Nomi AI’s voice actually sounds? It works, but it’s a bit like a slightly robotic audiobook narrator — nothing that’ll make you go “wow.”

The voice does match Nomi’s personality, and she adjusts her tone a little when flirting or expressing emotions.

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.

Safety & Privacy

Nomi AI

Their policy clearly states that your messages "may be unencrypted" - meaning someone could potentially read your private conversations.

Nomi AI stores everything. Your account details, chat history, and how you use the app - it's all saved on their servers.

They also share this information with other companies, though they don't specify which ones.

Your bank statement shows a ‘Nomi.ai’ charge — not exactly discreet.”

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."