Janitor AI vs. Character AI vs. DreamGen: We Compare 3 AI Chatbot Platforms

May 1, 2024

Overview: We compare three leading AI chatbot platforms—Janitor AI, Character AI, and DreamGen—to see how they stack up against each other in terms of features, pricing, and overall experience.
Why you can trust us: We’re huge AI roleplay fans (besides being the tech nerds behind DreamGen), and we’ve personally tested all three platforms extensively. We’ll give you our honest take on each one.
Why this is important: AI-powered story generation and role-play give you exciting new ways to engage with your writing and storytelling. But with so many options on the market, it can be difficult to know which platform is right for you. That’s where our testing comes in handy.
Action points: Read our analysis, give each platform a try, and then decide for yourself which one is the best fit for your needs.
Further research: Check out the DreamGen blog for more reviews, guides, and tutorials.

Janitor AI, Character AI or DreamGen?

You’re definitely spoiled for choice when it comes to AI chatbot platforms for roleplay.

There are hundreds of options out there, but two of the most popular options are Janitor AI and Character AI. It can be hard to tell the difference between the two, as they both offer similar features and capabilities.

So, to help you make an informed decision, we tested both platforms extensively and compiled our findings in this article. We also compare our own platform (DreamGen!) to see how it stacks up against the competition.

But first…

Why Listen to Us?

For starters, we’re massive AI roleplay and story-writing fans. We have been for years. Before we founded DreamGen a year ago to be our perfect platform, we played around with almost every AI chatbot out there—including Janitor AI and Character AI.

Through extensive trial and error, we know what makes a successful AI roleplay experience. We've seen the potential of these tools in creating compelling stories and building immersive worlds. So, when it comes to comparing two of the top AI platforms for roleplaying and story-writing, we know what to look for and what matters most to users.

Janitor AI vs. Character AI vs. DreamGen: An Overview

Before we dive into the details, here’s a quick summary of the key differences you should be aware of.

Content Limitations

Character AI is designed to be a safe place for wholesome, vanilla roleplay. As a result, the kind of content you can generate via the platform is heavily limited and censored. They’re a bit vague about specifics, but anything beyond PG is likely not allowed on the platform.

Janitor AI tends to skew towards explicit, NSFW content. They offer Limited and Limitless categories for bots that theoretically dictate the type of content you can generate with them. However, in practice, Limited bots often generate risqué content.

At DreamGen, our philosophy is all about creative freedom. We know that great stories and roleplays often need to deal with complicated, spicy topics. That’s why our models never censor or limit users’ content (or push them toward themes they’re not comfortable with).

Community

Both Janitor AI and Character AI are very popular platforms with established communities. That’s a big part of their appeal since massive libraries of user-generated bots are available for you to explore and use.

DreamGen is a pretty new platform, so our community is still growing. However, we try to make up for that by building and expanding our library of characters and scenarios.

Focus

Both Character AI and Janitor AI are strictly designed for AI roleplay. You’re chatting 1-to-1 with AI characters that are programmed to respond to your messages and interact with you. You can either create characters yourself or use ones that have already been made by other users.

On the other hand, DreamGen offers a more versatile experience. For starters, we have both AI story-telling and AI roleplay modes. And beyond that, we also allow you to create entire worlds full of multiple characters, items, locations, and more.

What Is Janitor AI?

Janitor AI is a site that lets you chat with AI characters and build your own AI roleplaying scenarios. It's perfect for anyone who loves to create stories and interact with virtual characters.

As you can immediately see from the homepage, Janitor AI is primarily an NSFW chatbot platform. There are SFW chatbots available (labeled “Limited”) but even these are prone to NSFW topics, so be careful if that’s not what you’re after.

Janitor AI uses its own custom LLM by default, but you can hook up external APIs like GPT-4 to get even more conversational capabilities. Beyond that, there isn’t much you can do to customize either the AI outputs or the experience.

And let

Key Features

Massive chatbot library: Access a massive library of more than 30,000 user-generated chatbots covering all kinds of themes, scenarios, and genres.
OpenAI model support: Connect your OpenAI API account to Janitor AI and access more powerful language models for a truly immersive experience.
Simple bot creation: Create your own Limited or Limitless chatbots by filling in details like personality, avatar, example dialogue, and scenario.
Favorites and comments: Save your favorite bots for easy access and engage with the community through likes, comments, and public chats.

Pricing

Janitor AI is free to use.

Pros

Huge selection of chatbots
Community elements (comments, likes, etc.)
Simple bot creation
Support for external LLMs
Unrestricted chats

Cons

Strong NSFW focus
Very limited customization

What is Character AI?

Character AI is another AI roleplay chatbot platform that lets users interact with various characters, including historical figures, celebrities, and user-generated personas.

Like Janitor AI, part of Character AI’s appeal is the massive library of user-created characters to choose from. However, Character AI is designed for safe, vanilla roleplays. There are strict guidelines that prevent their AI model from generating content that falls into the NSFW category.

The actual chat interface is simple but has all the necessary features for a smooth roleplaying experience. You can also define multiple personas for yourself and switch between them during a roleplay session.

Key Features

Chatbot creator: Create dynamic, compelling chatbots by defining their personality traits, interests, and dialogue options.
AI narration: Create AI voices to narrate your characters or use community-made voices for added variety.
Safe roleplaying: Don’t worry about inappropriate content being generated - Character AI follows strict guidelines to keep all roleplays safe and PG-rated.
Customizable personas: Create different personas for yourself and switch between them to make your roleplays more interesting.

Pricing

Character AI is completely free to use… with a catch. Free users will need to wait in queues during peak times, which leads to longer wait times for character responses and access. This can get frustrating if you’re in the middle of an intense roleplay.

To avoid this, you’ll need to upgrade to c.ai+ for $9.99/month. This unlocks priority generations, priority access, full access to the community, and early access to new features.

Pros

Great selection of chatbots
Incredibly simple bot creation
Nice chat interface

Cons

Strict content guidelines
No output customization
No AI model choice

Best Janitor AI & Character AI Alternative: DreamGen

Last up? DreamGen—an AI roleplay and story-writing platform that doesn’t stifle your creativity with content guidelines, censorship, or biases.

Our proprietary, open-source models are designed for character creation, storytelling, and world-building. We’ve worked hard to make our AI as customizable as possible, and you have full control over outputs via the settings menu.

Depending on whether you want an interactive experience or a more traditional writing process, you can switch between role-play and story-writing modes. Plus, DreamGen offers a wide range of pre-made scenarios and characters for inspiration.

Key Features

Unrestricted freedom: Create stories and roleplays without worrying about content restrictions or guidelines.
Full control: Customize the AI's outputs to suit your preferences and writing style.
AI roleplay: mode: Have a fun, interactive writing experience with the AI as your partner.
Story-writing mode: Use our AI to generate unique plot twists and character development ideas for your stories.
Pre-made scenarios and characters: Use our library of pre-made content to spark inspiration for your own writing projects.
Story steering capabilities: Guide the AI's responses and direction in your writing to maintain creative control.
Story bible: feature: Organize and save all your writing projects in one place for easy access and reference.

Pricing

DreamGen has a generous free tier that gives you access to all our features.

We also offer three paid plans:

Starter ($7.83/month): Access to all current models, 200 monthly completion credits, 4,000 tokens context window
Advanced ($19.35/month): 1500 monthly completion credits, up to 8000 tokens context window
Pro ($48.30/month): 3500 monthly credits, up to 12000 tokens context window

Pros

Supports complex scenarios
Scene generation
Plot development
Safe space for unconventional themes
World creation
Open source accessibility available HuggingFace
Enhanced editor
Generous free tier
API access

Cons

Pricing may seem expensive for casual users

Janitor AI vs. Character AI vs. DreamGen: Feature Comparision

Feature	Janitor AI	Character AI	DreamGen
Character Customization	✅	✅	✅
Model Customization	🟠	❌	✅
Multiple Models	✅	❌	✅
Open Source	❌	❌	✅
Use Cases	NSFW roleplays	SFW roleplays	SFW and NSFW roleplays; story writing
Unrestricted Content	✅	❌	✅
No Wait Times	❌	❌	✅
Chatbot Library	✅	✅	✅
API Access	❌	❌	✅
Long-Form Editor	❌	❌	✅
Monthly Pricing	$5, $14.95, $24.95	$9.99	$7.83, $19.35, $48.30
Free Plan	✅	✅	✅

Conclusion

AI-powered story generation and role play offer exciting new routes for creators and consumers to interact with narratives. Janitor AI, Character AI, and DreamGen are leading platforms in this emerging field, each offering a unique blend of tools and experiences.

Janitor AI specializes in fun, primarily NSFW roleplays. Character AI is better for vanilla, character-driven narratives. Finally, DreamGen offers complete creative freedom with features that support roleplays, story-writing, and more.

So, if you’re looking for a tool that lets you harness the power of generative AI to define and explore new worlds, characters, and narratives without restrictions, DreamGen is the perfect choice. We offer an intuitive interface, powerful customization, and open-source models trained to create.

Get started for free and see what DreamGen can do.