Ranked by conversation & memory · 25% of the total score
AI companions with proper mobile apps
Whether the model holds a coherent personality across a long conversation, and whether it remembers what you told it days earlier without being reminded.
We earn a commission if you subscribe through some links on this page, including our commercial partner SweetDream AI. Partner listings are labelled. Commission never changes a score, because every score is calculated from the published rubric.
The short answer
Only a minority of AI companion services have native mobile apps: Kindroid, Nomi AI, Replika, Character.AI, Joi AI and EVA AI. Everything else is a browser page that works on a phone but offers no app-store billing, no notifications and no home-screen presence. Buying through the App Store or Play Store typically costs a little more and is considerably easier to cancel.
Most apps in this category are browser-only and are excluded from this page. A mobile browser works, but you get no home-screen icon, no notifications and no app-store refund route.
Ranked on this criterion alone
6 apps
| # | App | Conversation score | Overall | Real cost / month | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nomi AI | 9.2 | 8.1 | £7 on the annual plan, £13 monthly | Visit |
| 2 | Kindroid | 8.8 | 8.2 | £11 on web, £13 through the App Store or Play Store | Visit |
| 3 | Character.AI | 8.0 | 7.4 | £0, or £8 for c.ai+ | Visit |
| 4 | Replika | 7.5 | 7.5 | £5 on the annual plan, £16 monthly | Visit |
| 5 | Joi AI | 7.0 | 7.5 | £10–£30 depending on media use | Visit |
| 6 | EVA AI | 6.8 | 6.8 | £12–£25 | Visit |
→ scroll the table sideways to see every column
What to actually look for
Most of this category is browser-only. That works on a phone, but it means no home-screen icon, no push notifications, and crucially no app-store billing — which matters more than people expect.
App-store billing costs more and is worth it for a first subscription. Kindroid is about £11 a month on the web and £13 through the app stores, roughly £24 a year for an identical product. What the premium buys is a cancellation route you control: Settings → Subscriptions on iOS, or Play Store → Payments and subscriptions on Android, neither of which the developer can obstruct.
On the web you are relying on the company’s own cancellation flow, and in this category several make that harder than signing up. Our cancellation guide covers both routes and what to do when one fails.
Native apps also carry app-store age ratings, which is a weak signal but a real one — it is one more layer between an app and a teenager’s phone than a browser page offers.
If you are confident about an app and intend to keep it, buy on the web and take the saving. For a first subscription, pay the app-store premium.
How we score this
Conversation & memory carries 25% of the overall score. Whether the model holds a coherent personality across a long conversation, and whether it remembers what you told it days earlier without being reminded.
- A score above 9 means: recalls specific details from earlier sessions unprompted; stays in character under pressure.
- A score below 5 means: resets between sessions, contradicts its own backstory, or loops the same stock phrases.
The full weighting and what each number means is on the methodology page.
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