Chat9.5
Images8.8
Video9.0
Memory9.5
NSFW9.8
Price$20/mo
Volume 01 · Field Notes · April 2026
I spent a month with 5 AI companion apps. Most of them were bad.
One paid subscription per app. Same protocol across all five. No press access, no cherry-picking, no "best of 2026" bait. Just what each one is actually for.
TL;DR
If you just want the answer: OurDream.
How I Tested
One month per app. Same protocol. Paid out of pocket.
Same character in each app — name, age, job, hometown, one small personal detail like a pet. 50+ chat messages across seven days. Images and video at default and high-quality settings where they exist. Then a week off, then a return visit to see what each app remembered without prompting.
Scored on six axes: chat, images, video, memory, content freedom, value. Scores are judgment calls, not measurements. If a number looks harsh, I was disappointed. If it looks generous, I was surprised.
No press access. No interviews with founders. No early-access cherry-picking.
OurDream
A month in, it's the only one of these five I still open without a reason to. The chat model remembered the character's job, hometown, and the name of her cat, a week later, without prompting. Nobody else came close.
your ai bro · 4 weeks of testing
I expected to hate OurDream. The landing page is the kind of thing that makes you close the tab on reflex — gradient hero, "Your Perfect AI Companion Awaits," testimonial from someone named Jake M. who looks suspiciously like a stock photo. I signed up anyway because that's the job.
The chat model is the reason. I don't know what they're fine-tuning on top of — they won't say, and I asked twice — but it holds a conversation in a way the others don't. Memory is better than it has any right to be.
Video is good (weirdly better than their images, which are only good-not-great). Pricing is the one place I'd push back: $20/month with no weekly or day pass. If cost-to-try matters, this isn't the one.
Multi-scene · 720p
Narrative sequence · OurDream only
Chat 9.5
Images 8.8
Video 9.0
Memory 9.5
NSFW 9.8
Value 8.5
What's Broken
- Hands in image gen are still a coin flip.
- No weekly trial — $20/month or nothing.
- Free tier is a trailer, not a demo.
What Works
- Chat model that holds character across sessions.
- Memory accuracy a week later — nobody else came close.
- Multi-scene video. Only app in the lineup that has it.
- Content-freedom line set by someone who clearly thought about it.
Try OurDream
(opens in new tab)
Free tier. $20/month after.
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Darlink AI
The one that surprised me. Expected generic — got something with actual taste in character design. Free tier is real, not a trailer. If I couldn't have OurDream, this is where I'd go.
your ai bro
Best for anyone who wants chat + photos + video under one roof, without paying up front.
Darlink's character roster is the part that got my attention first — Raven Lorcroft, Lena Faraday, Livia Winthrope, Aanya Kapoor. These are not the usual "girl next door" presets every other app in this category ships. Someone over there thought about it.
Chat is solid, not spectacular. Photos hit more than they miss. Video is a shade behind OurDream but well ahead of the middle of the pack. Memory lands mid-high — a week later it held the character's name, job, and a specific detail I'd mentioned in passing.
The free tier is where Darlink distinguishes itself. It actually lets you use the product, not just preview it. That alone makes this one of the easier first-timers in the category to recommend.
Raven Lorcroft
Lena
Livia
Aanya
Miyuki
Luna
Chat 7.8
Images 7.5
Video 7.0
Memory 7.5
NSFW 8.0
Value 8.8
What's Broken
- Nothing here is category-leading. Solid across the board, but no single headline strength.
- Photos occasionally drift off-character on complex prompts.
What Works
- Character roster with actual taste — names and archetypes that feel thought-through.
- Free tier that lets you use the product, not just preview it.
- All three modalities — chat, photos, video — shipped and working.
- Mid-pack pricing, top-pack experience.
Try Darlink AI
(opens in new tab)
Free tier is real.
Secrets AI
The catalog play. Secrets' character library is deeper than any other app here — hundreds of pre-made characters. Chat model is mid-tier but the variety lets you iterate on what works. $8/month is the best value-per-dollar in the lineup.
your ai bro
Best for catalog-first users who'd rather pick from a library than build from scratch.
Secrets' strategy is volume. Hundreds of pre-made characters, browsable without signing up, organized by tags that actually make sense. You're not designing a companion; you're shopping for one. For a lot of people — especially coming in from Reddit and not wanting to commit to a persona yet — that's the right shape.
The underlying chat model is a generation behind the top of the category. You'll feel it if you're comparing side-by-side with OurDream. But $8/month, the most generous free tier of the five, and a pricing page that doesn't try anything clever make Secrets the easiest recommendation for someone who just wants to see what this is about.
Rachel
Heather
Ellie
River
Ruby
Eden
HannahBlairChat 7.0
Images 7.0
Video 6.0
Memory 7.0
NSFW 7.5
Value 9.2
What's Broken
- Chat model is a generation behind. Feels it in long sessions.
- Video is functional-only. Don't plan around it.
What Works
- $8/month — cheapest in the lineup by a meaningful margin.
- Largest character library of the five, well-organized.
- Most generous free tier — not a teaser, a real trial.
- Pricing page with zero dark patterns.
Try Secrets AI
(opens in new tab)
Free tier. $8/month after.
Xotic AI
Best images in the lineup. Everything else falls off a cliff. If image quality is the only axis you care about, Xotic wins outright. If you want memory, continuity, or a chat that doesn't reset itself mid-session — look elsewhere.
your ai bro
Best for image-first users who treat each session as its own thing.
Xotic's image generator is genuinely the best in the category — not by a small margin, by a comfortable one. Hands work. Faces hold up across multiple generations of the same character. The aesthetic is a little glossy, but the model follows softer prompts if you nudge it.
Chat is where it falls off. A week after establishing a character, Xotic remembered her job. Nothing else. The personality model reset itself mid-conversation twice during testing. This is a rank-4 product with a rank-1 image generator inside it — your mileage depends entirely on how much you care about the other five axes.
Valentina
Arielle
Kelly
Sofia
Chat 6.5
Images 9.4
Video 7.0
Memory 4.5
NSFW 7.5
Value 7.0
What's Broken
- Memory barely works — week-later recall pulled one fact of five.
- Personality model reset itself mid-session twice.
- Category-leading images; everything else is rank-4 mid.
What Works
- Best image generator in the lineup — not close.
- Consistent character faces across sessions.
- $15/month with a usable free tier.
Swipey
The one I'd check back on in three months. Video previews are tight, voice is fine for a newer entrant, but the interface is rough and memory is shallow. Promising, not recommended yet.
your ai bro
Best for early-adopters who don't mind rough edges for a shot at seeing where a product is going.
Swipey is the newest of the five, and it shows — in both directions. The video previews on their landing page are legitimately tight, probably the cleanest short-loop output of any rank-4-or-below app I tested. Voice is competent. The character library is smaller than the competition but the quality-per-character is high.
What's rough: interface hiccups, chat that runs into weird walls when you stress-test it, memory that barely survives a page refresh. These are fixable problems. In three months I'd be curious to come back. For now, there are better picks at every price point — but if "newest thing" is a tie-breaker for you, Swipey is worth a look.
Albina
Mia
Amina
Sofia
Maria
Chat 5.8
Images 6.5
Video 6.8
Memory 5.5
NSFW 7.0
Value 7.2
What's Broken
- UI is rough — noticeably less polished than the top four.
- Memory system barely survives session breaks.
- Chat hits weird refusal walls under stress-testing.
What Works
- Short-loop video output punches above its rank.
- Small library but high quality-per-character.
- Newest codebase — fastest-moving roadmap of the five.
At a Glance
All five, side by side.
Chat7.8
Images7.5
Video7.0
Memory7.5
NSFW8.0
PriceFree+
Chat7.0
Images7.0
Video6.0
Memory7.0
NSFW7.5
Price$8/mo
Chat6.5
Images9.4
Video7.0
Memory4.5
NSFW7.5
Price$15/mo
Chat5.8
Images6.5
Video6.8
Memory5.5
NSFW7.0
Price$15/mo
| App | Chat | Images | Video | Memory | NSFW | Price | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OurDream | 9.5 | 8.8 | 9.0 | 9.5 | 9.8 | $20 | 9.2 | Try → OurDream |
| Darlink AI | 7.8 | 7.5 | 7.0 | 7.5 | 8.0 | Free+ | 7.8 | Try → Darlink AI |
| Secrets AI | 7.0 | 7.0 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 7.5 | $8 | 7.3 | Try → Secrets AI |
| Xotic AI | 6.5 | 9.4 | 7.0 | 4.5 | 7.5 | $15 | 6.8 | Try → Xotic AI |
| Swipey | 5.8 | 6.5 | 6.8 | 5.5 | 7.0 | $15 | 6.1 | Try → Swipey |
Questions I Got Asked
Things people actually want to know.
Darlink and Secrets have free tiers that actually let you use the product — that's where I'd start if "free" is a hard requirement. OurDream's free tier is closer to a trailer. Xotic and Swipey land in between. None of these free tiers let you see the product's best self — but Darlink and Secrets come closest.
OurDream has the loosest guardrails, and they feel deliberate — someone clearly thought about where the line is. Darlink is close behind. Xotic is middle-of-the-road. Secrets and Swipey sit tighter. None are properly unlimited. Any app claiming to be is lying to you.
Images: Xotic, not close. Video: OurDream (the only one with multi-scene narrative clips). Chat: OurDream for depth and memory, Darlink for balance, Secrets for variety. If you want one that does all three reasonably well, OurDream is the only honest answer. If you can't pay $20 upfront, Darlink's the safest bet.
Define private. None of these are end-to-end encrypted — they process your messages on their servers to generate responses. All five claim in their privacy policies not to train on your conversations without consent; I have no way to verify any of them. My assumption: anything you send could, in principle, be seen by someone who works there. Act accordingly.
All five worked on US IP, UK VPN, and EU VPN during testing. Xotic was slow on EU. Payment is the real gate — several route through adult-industry processors, and if your bank flags those you'll know quickly. None accept PayPal. Most take standard credit cards; a few take crypto.
Two reasons. One: I paid for all five myself, a month each, same protocol. No press access, no interviews with founders, no early-access cherry-picking. Two: I've written about this category long enough that I'm easy to fact-check. If I tell you OurDream remembered a detail a week later, that's because it did, and I can reproduce it.