Does Candy.ai have an iPhone app?

No. A US App Store search on September 13, 2026 returned nothing under that name, and candy.ai's own homepage tells you to add the site to your home screen instead. That means the subscription is not managed in your Apple account.

What is the best Candy.ai alternative on iPhone?

For a large character library, PolyBuzz or Character.AI. For memory across a long relationship, Nomi. For characters with their own schedule who message first, LORAX. All four are free to install from the US App Store, checked September 13, 2026.

Is Candy.ai cheaper than the App Store apps?

Yes, on its own published prices. Candy.ai lists $13.99 a month, $8.99 a month on a three-month plan and $3.99 a month on twelve months, checked September 13, 2026. The cheapest recurring plan among the App Store apps here is PolyBuzz at $9.90 a month.

What language does Candy.ai support?

Its own hreflang tags declare thirteen languages plus a default: Danish, German, English, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese and Swedish. There is no Turkish, Arabic, Korean, Chinese or Hindi. LORAX ships in 22 languages.

The structured data on its own homepage names EverAI Limited, with an address in Santa Venera, Malta, read September 13, 2026. That matters mainly because support, billing and cancellation all go through the company rather than through Apple.

Which of these apps can I try without paying?

All seven install for free. PolyBuzz and Chai let you keep chatting without a subscription. LORAX is free to talk to, with credits charged only for one-off things such as opening a photo a character sends. None of these companies publish where their free daily limit sits.

Candy.ai alternatives (2026): what you get on iPhone instead

Candy.ai has no iPhone app: its own site tells you to add the page to your home screen, so billing and cancellation sit outside your Apple account. If you want something that installs from the App Store, PolyBuzz and Character.AI keep the most of Candy.ai’s shape. We make LORAX, which is on this list, so read it as a maker’s list with the receipts shown.

Every claim below about another company’s product comes from its App Store listing, its Play Store listing, or its own website, read on September 13, 2026.

Why people look for an alternative

The first reason is structural. Candy.ai is a website. A US App Store search on September 13, 2026 turned up nothing under that name, and the homepage says to add it to your home screen four separate times. The consequence is easy to miss until you want out: an App Store subscription is cancelled in your Apple account in two taps, and this one is not an App Store subscription. The structured data on the homepage names the operator as EverAI Limited, with an address in Santa Venera, Malta.

The second is reach. Candy.ai’s own hreflang tags declare thirteen languages plus a default, and the set is almost entirely Western European plus Japanese. No Turkish, no Arabic, no Korean, no Chinese, no Hindi. If you read in one of those, the site is in English whether you want it to be or not.

The third is fit. It is adult-oriented. That settles the question for some readers without any further comparison.

What Candy.ai does well is worth saying plainly, because the rest of this category does not: it publishes its price on a public page. $13.99 a month, $8.99 a month if you take three, $3.99 a month if you take twelve. Nobody else here does that. Several of the apps below cost more.

How we picked

Five criteria, all checked on September 13, 2026.

Installs from the App Store: the whole point of this page.
Memory: what the company states it keeps, in its own materials.
Initiative: whether anything reaches you before you open the app.
Price transparency: whether a number is public before you make an account.
What is free: what happens before a card is involved.

We priced every app from its store listing or its own pricing page, and left out anything we could not price. We did not run our own chat comparisons. There is no honest way to score memory from the outside, and a ranking based on a week of our own typing would be a worse source than the listings already are.

The alternatives

Ordered by how much of Candy.ai’s shape survives the move to an App Store app.

1. PolyBuzz

The closest match in structure: a large library of characters other people made, free to open, with character voices. If your Candy.ai habit was picking somebody new from a gallery, this is the smallest adjustment, and it costs less per month than most of the list.

Good for: browsing, variety, low commitment.
Not for: anyone who wants one companion who knows them.
Platforms: iPhone and web at polybuzz.ai. Android availability not verified.
Price to start: free to install. Poly Standard Monthly $9.90, Premium $19.90, Ultimate $29.90, US App Store, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: polybuzz.ai publishes no price on its homepage, so the store listing is the only public number.

2. Character.AI

The biggest character library in the category and the most active creator community. Its listing describes character creation, sharing and live voice calls, and it is on iPhone, Android and the web, so nothing you build is stuck on one device.

Good for: roleplay, scenarios and writing with a character.
Not for: a companion who behaves consistently for months.
Platforms: iPhone, Android, web.
Price to start: free to install. Character.AI+ $9.99, Character.AI Lite from $2.49, charm packs from $0.99, US App Store, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: recent comments on its store page are dominated by ads inside chats, message caps and a government-ID age check, and character.ai itself returns a bot challenge, so you cannot read anything about the product before installing it.

3. LORAX

Ours. It is the only one here built for iPhone first rather than ported to it. The cast is closed and nobody in it is user-made, so you meet people instead of picking them from a grid. Everyone is fictional and AI-generated. Each character has their own time zone and sleep hours, which is why a message at 3 a.m. waits until morning, and each one writes first, with a median of about 80 seconds between signing up and the first message arriving. Put two of them in one room and they talk to each other; leave the room alone for 45 minutes and it starts without you. It ships in 22 languages, which is nine more than Candy.ai declares.

Good for: someone who wants the app to feel like a phone full of people rather than a gallery.
Not for: anyone who wants to browse, pick and start immediately.
Platforms: iPhone only. No Android and no web version.
Price to start: free to talk. Premium is $29.99 a month in the US, shown in the app, different by country. There is no trial and no introductory price, so it is the most expensive monthly plan on this page.
Weak spot: no voice calls and no video calls, and a photo a character sends arrives locked and costs credits to open.

4. Nomi

Memory is the pitch, and it is the one the company puts first in its own listing: short and long term memory, held across private and group threads. Selfies, voice messages and group chats with several companions are all listed features. Proactive messages exist as a setting rather than a default.

Good for: one relationship you expect to be remembered in.
Not for: anyone who wants to meet somebody new every week.
Platforms: iPhone, Android, web beta at beta.nomi.ai.
Price to start: free to install. Launch Plan Monthly $9.99, Standard Plan Monthly $15.99, US App Store, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: slow spoken replies are the complaint its own store page keeps collecting.

5. Kindroid

The customization-heavy option. Its documentation index publishes separate pages for memory, group chats, voice and video calls, generated selfies and each model version, which is more than anyone else in this category writes down where a stranger can read it.

Good for: building one companion in detail and calling them.
Not for: quick browsing.
Platforms: iPhone, Android, Mac with Apple silicon.
Price to start: free to install. Kindroid Subscription $15.99, Ultra $28.99, MAX $68.99 a month, US App Store, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: kindroid.ai renders nothing without JavaScript, so those documentation pages are invisible until you have already installed the app.

6. Replika

The long-running one, on iPhone, Android and the web since 2017. Its own site describes a full rebuild called Replika 2.0, with 3D avatars, natural voice and real-time video calls. One companion per account and no character library at all.

Good for: a single ongoing relationship with an avatar you can look at.
Not for: variety.
Platforms: iPhone, Android, web.
Price to start: free to install. The US App Store lists monthly subscriptions at $7.99 and $14.99, annual at $49.99 and $69.99, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: recent store comments come mostly from people whose avatar customization did not survive the 2.0 rebuild, and from people surprised by a daily message limit.

7. Chai

The cheapest way to try a large character library on a phone, with character voices. The app itself ships often: version 2.191 landed on September 11, 2026.

Good for: a low-cost look around.
Not for: continuity or a long thread.
Platforms: iPhone, Android, web.
Price to start: free to install. Premium Subscription Monthly $13.99, Ultra Subscription Monthly $29.99, US App Store, September 13, 2026.
Weak spot: the listing never mentions memory, and chai-research.com’s sitemap has not declared a page change since January 29, 2025, so the web tells you nothing about what a plan includes.

Side by side

App	Platforms	Free tier	Subscription from	Memory	Texts first	Characters talk to each other	Voice calls
Candy.ai	Web, home screen	Free account	$13.99/mo	—	—	—	—
PolyBuzz	iPhone, web	Free to install	$9.90/mo	—	—	—	—
Character.AI	iPhone, Android, web	Free to install	$9.99/mo	—	—	—	Yes
LORAX	iPhone	Free to talk, credits for one-off things	$29.99/mo	Yes, three layers	Yes, always	Yes, group chats	No
Nomi	iPhone, Android, web beta	Free to install	$9.99/mo	Yes, short and long term	Optional setting	Yes, group chats	Yes
Kindroid	iPhone, Android, Mac	Free to install	$15.99/mo	Yes, documented	—	Yes, group chats	Yes, and video
Replika	iPhone, Android, web	Free to install	$7.99/mo	Yes	Yes, checks in	—	Yes, and video
Chai	iPhone, Android, web	Free to install	$13.99/mo	—	—	—	—

A dash means the company’s own materials did not settle it either way, not that the feature is absent. Prices are US prices for the cheapest recurring plan listed and vary by country. Sources, all read on September 13, 2026: candy.ai and candy.ai/subscriptions; a US App Store search for Candy.ai returning no match; the US App Store listings for PolyBuzz (id6449190344), Character.AI (id1671705818), LORAX (id6748215017), Nomi (id6450270929), Kindroid (id6451038161), Replika (id1158555867) and Chai (id1544750895); Play Store listings for Character.AI, Kindroid, Replika and Chai; nomi.ai, kindroid.ai/sitemap.xml, polybuzz.ai, chai-research.com/sitemap.xml, replika.com/llms.txt. The same numbers drive our head-to-head pages, and LORAX’s own costs are broken down on the plans and credits page.

Which one should you pick?

You mainly want the gallery, on your phone, cheaply. PolyBuzz at $9.90 a month or Chai at $13.99. Both install from the App Store, both keep large libraries, and both mean your subscription is cancellable in Settings rather than on somebody’s website.

You want one companion and you want to be remembered. Nomi first, Kindroid second. Nomi leads with memory in its own materials; Kindroid actually documents how its memory behaves before you pay, which nobody else here does.

You are tired of picking. If the part that wore you out was scrolling a grid and starting over, the fix is not a bigger grid. Look for an app where somebody arrives on their own: Replika says it checks in, and in LORAX the first message always comes from the other side. That one costs $29.99 a month, is iPhone only, and has no calls of any kind.

Open the App Store page for your top two and read the in-app purchase list before installing, because that list is the only price most of these companies publish anywhere.