Character AI vs Janitor AI vs Poe AI: The Ultimate 2025 Showdown

• In June 2025 Character.AI appointed Karandeep Anand as CEO and announced a 60-day action plan to improve memory, relax the safety filter, and add creator tools, while Google licensed Character.AI’s LLM and took a stake, valuing the company at about $2.5–$3 billion.
• Character.AI launched official iOS and Android apps in 2023, logged 1.7 million installs in its first week, and by late 2023 had over 4.2 million monthly active users in the U.S., with more than 18 million custom characters by 2025.
• Character.AI introduced Group conversations and Scenes between 2023 and 2025, and AvatarFX adds short animated avatar reactions to chats.
• Janitor AI began in mid-2023 using OpenAI GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 via API, faced a July 2023 OpenAI cease-and-desist for uncensored content, then built its own JanitorLLM and added KoboldAI and OpenRouter support to run third-party models.
• Janitor AI is NSFW-friendly with an adult-content toggle, bans illegal or extreme material, and uses automated and human moderation to police content, with no inherent safety filter on its default model.
• Poe AI by Quora positions itself as a multi-model aggregator offering around 100 models by 2025 (including GPT-4, Claude, and various open models) and added Poe Apps in 2025 to build visual interfaces and multi-step workflows.
• Poe’s pricing includes a free tier with limits and a Premium plan at $19.99 per month for unlimited top-model access, plus a compute-points system for heavy use; by mid-2024 there were about 40,000 paid subscribers and roughly $7.3 million in subscription revenue.
• Character.AI stores conversations on its servers with no end-to-end encryption and faced 2024 lawsuits over safety, prompting leadership changes and teen-safety measures in 2024–2025.
• Janitor AI emphasizes freedom and customization with a model-agnostic approach, including the ability to use your own API key or connect via KoboldAI/OpenRouter, and it supports exporting/importing characters for community sharing.
• Poe combines model-provider safety rules with platform guidelines, launched a Bot Marketplace and creator monetization, and introduced Poe Apps in 2025 to build custom tools and multi-model pipelines, making it a productive AI toolbox.

The year 2025 finds Character AI, Janitor AI, and Poe AI as three prominent yet very different chatbot platforms vying for users’ attention. Each offers its own twist on conversational AI – from Character.AI’s polished AI companions and strict safety filters to Janitor AI’s uncensored roleplay sandbox, and Poe’s all-in-one model hub by Quora. “We started the company because we want to get this technology in the hands of everybody… A billion people can invent a billion use cases,” Character.AI co-founder Noam Shazeer said of his platform’s mission ts2.tech. That ethos of broad AI access is shared in spirit by these services, but they execute it in radically different ways. In this report, we’ll compare their user experience, model capabilities, content policies, customization features, safety measures, pricing, community support, and latest developments as of 2025. By the end, you’ll see how each platform stands out – and which might best suit your needs in the ultimate chatbot showdown.

User Experience and Interface

Character AI (Character.AI) delivers a slick, game-like chat experience centered on user-created characters. The interface is clean and easy to navigate, whether on web or mobile. In fact, Character.AI launched official iOS and Android apps in 2023, racking up 1.7 million installs in its first week techcrunch.com and eventually reaching over 4.2 million monthly active mobile users in the U.S. by late 2023 techcrunch.com. The design encourages immersion – each bot has an avatar and backstory, and chats feel like messaging a persona. There’s a strong focus on creative roleplay and long-form dialogue. Features like multi-chat “Group” conversations (having multiple AI characters talk together) and “Scenes” (scripted story scenarios) were rolled out in 2023–2025 to enrich the experience ts2.tech. A “Feed” of shared AI chat stories and AvatarFX animated avatars add a social, multimedia flair ts2.tech ts2.tech. Character.AI remembers some context (we’ll discuss memory later), and it has a polished feel overall, though occasional slowdowns or “waiting room” queues have been largely solved with better infrastructure ts2.tech.

Janitor AI offers a more bare-bones but flexible web interface (no official mobile app, though mobile browsers are supported medium.com). If you’ve used Character.AI, Janitor’s chat UI will feel familiar – you select or create a character (complete with a name, avatar, and description) and start messaging in a scrollable chat thread ts2.tech. The draw here is customization and freedom: Janitor AI lets users tweak many settings (character personality details, memory length, even the AI model used). It started as a website in mid-2023 and quickly went viral on TikTok and Reddit for its uncensored, “anything goes” chat style ts2.tech ts2.tech. Ease of use is a mixed bag: on one hand, you can dive in and chat with community-made characters easily; on the other, truly taking advantage of Janitor may involve some setup (for example, entering your own API key to use a more advanced model) medium.com medium.com. Janitor AI’s interface is functional but not as flashy – think of it as a community-driven chat sandbox. The absence of an official app is offset by the platform’s web accessibility and the benefit of no hard caps on messages or conversation length (great for marathon roleplay sessions) ts2.tech. Overall, Janitor AI prioritizes freedom over polish: it’s not the prettiest, but it lets you chat how you want, with minimal friction.

Poe AI (by Quora) positions itself as “the best AI, all in one place.” Its user experience revolves around simplicity and variety. Upon opening Poe (via web, iOS, or now Android), you’re greeted with a list of available bots/models to chat with. Poe has had a slick mobile app from early on – it launched on iOS in 2023 and later expanded, contributing to a growing user base (about 4 million MAU on mobile in the U.S. by 2024 according to SimilarWeb data) techcrunch.com. The interface is modern and minimal: choose a model (like GPT-4, Claude, etc.) or a user-created bot, then you get a chat screen similar to a messaging app. Poe emphasizes speed and convenience. Conversations are snappy, and you can seamlessly switch between different AI personalities or even chat with multiple bots in one thread. In 2024 Poe introduced a multi-bot chat feature allowing one conversation to include responses from several models – for example, one could invoke GPT-4 for a question, then have an image generator bot produce a picture, all in the same chat flow zapier.com zapier.com. This is part of Poe’s unique value: it’s an aggregator that lets you mix and match AI services without leaving the app. The interface remains straightforward despite these advanced features. Poe also added support for various languages and even launched a system for creators to build graphical interfaces (Poe “Apps”) on top of chatbots for specialized tasks poe.com poe.com – a testament to its growing platform capabilities. For the everyday user, though, Poe is very plug-and-play: no prompt engineering needed beyond picking the right bot. Its chat style can range from casual Q&A to creative storytelling, depending on which bot you pick, making the user experience as rich or direct as you desire.

Available Models and AI Capabilities

One of the biggest differentiators in this showdown is what AI brains power each platform. Here, the approaches vary from proprietary models to open model smorgasbords:

• Character AI’s Model: Character.AI runs on its own custom large language models, developed in-house by the founders (who previously built Google’s LaMDA). They have not published technical specs, but by mid-2023 their model was robust enough to handle “billions of messages” and complex role-plays ts2.tech ts2.tech. It’s a closed ecosystem – you cannot swap in GPT-4 or another model. Character.AI’s model is tuned for conversational nuance and personality: users often praise how human-like and engaging the chats feel, even when you’re talking to a fantasy character. (Indeed, Character.AI’s uncanny dialogues – from Elon Musk impressions to anime heroes – helped it explode in popularity ts2.tech ts2.tech.) However, on hard facts or specific Q&A, it can lag behind GPT-4’s accuracy ts2.tech ts2.tech. The team optimized it more for creative flair than factual precision. Context length was a pain point – bots tended to “forget” earlier messages in long threads – but in 2025 Character.AI rolled out “Chat Memories” to allow some persistent recall of key facts (users can pin a short note of ~400 characters that the AI will remember) ts2.tech ts2.tech. That helps maintain continuity in longer stories. Character.AI’s model can even handle some multimodal elements: for instance, it powers the AvatarFX feature which generates short animated avatar reactions, and the AI-to-AI “Streams” (bot conversations) feature ts2.tech ts2.tech. In summary, Character.AI relies on one model (and possibly variants for specific uses), honed for open-ended dialogue. It’s very good at being a conversational chameleon – impersonating characters or adopting styles – but not designed to write code, do math, or retrieve live info. Also noteworthy: in 2024 the company partnered with Google Cloud to use TPU supercomputers for training and serving its model ts2.tech ts2.tech. This partnership (and a licensing deal) suggested Google saw value in Character.AI’s tech; indeed, Google took a significant stake and even brought the Character.AI founders back as part of a deal valuing the startup around $2.5–3 billion ts2.tech ts2.tech. So under the hood, Character.AI likely has considerable compute backing to scale up its model quality in the future (potentially even integrating larger Transformer-based models or Google tech). For now, though, the exact model architecture/size remains a company secret ts2.tech ts2.tech.
• Janitor AI’s Models: Janitor AI has a model-agnostic philosophy. Initially, when it launched in June 2023, it simply acted as an interface while piggybacking on OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 via API calls ts2.tech ts2.tech. That gave Janitor users impressively fluid and intelligent chats – until OpenAI sent a cease-and-desist in July 2023 because Janitor’s unfiltered sexual content violated OpenAI’s terms ts2.tech ts2.tech. Cut off from GPT-4, Janitor AI had to shift gears. The creator, Jan Zoltkowski, quickly stood up a proprietary model called JanitorLLM by late 2023 ts2.tech ts2.tech. Unusually, Zoltkowski’s team experimented beyond the trendy Transformers and found that “incrementally training their own models based on RNN architectures” yielded better results for their needs than standard Transformer models ts2.tech. In other words, JanitorLLM was built partly with recurrent neural network techniques, optimized for conversational continuity. This homegrown model now powers free, unlimited chats on JanitorAI (so any user can chat without needing to plug in an API key for an external model) ts2.tech ts2.tech. The trade-off: JanitorLLM, while improving steadily, is somewhat less sophisticated than OpenAI’s latest. Users note it’s decent for casual roleplay but not as coherent or knowledgeable as GPT-4 ts2.tech. However, Janitor imposes no hard limits on message length or volume, which is a boon for lengthy ERP (erotic roleplay) sessions and storytelling that might span dozens of messages ts2.tech. For those who want more advanced AI, Janitor AI embraces a “bring-your-own-model” approach: you can connect your own API key to use third-party models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Anthropic’s Claude, or even hook up a local model via a proxy ts2.tech ts2.tech. Essentially, Janitor can act as a front-end for whatever model you choose. Many power users did exactly this – continuing to get uncensored GPT-4 responses by routing requests through community-run proxies after official support was cut ts2.tech. There’s also integration with KoboldAI, which lets a user run an open-source model (like Pygmalion or LLaMA-based models) on their own machine and connect it to Janitor’s interface ts2.tech. This flexibility is a key capability: Janitor AI doesn’t have one single “brain” – it’s whatever brain you want, with a default option (JanitorLLM) if you don’t bring your own. The result is that Janitor AI’s capabilities can range wildly. Using the default, you get a reasonable but not cutting-edge chat; using GPT-4 (with your API key), you get top-tier quality and no content filter; using an open 6B model, you get perhaps mediocre quality but total privacy. It’s very much choose your own adventure in terms of AI performance.
• Poe AI’s Models: Poe’s entire premise is providing access to many top models behind one interface. It originally launched with a handful of chatbots – including OpenAI’s ChatGPT (GPT-3.5) and GPT-4, and Anthropic’s Claude – and has expanded steadily. By 2025, Poe boasts “100 of the best text, image, video, and audio models” available through its platform poe.com poe.com. In text alone, Poe includes OpenAI models (GPT-3.5, GPT-4 and newer refinements), Anthropic models (Claude 2 and iterations like Claude Instant, Claude “Opus” etc.), several open-source LLMs (like Meta’s Llama 2, the newer Mistral model, and others), and even Google’s models (it has slots ready for Gemini, Google’s upcoming AI, and already offered PaLM-based bots in some form) zapier.com zapier.com. Poe also integrates image generation (e.g. Stable Diffusion XL, DALL-E 3, Google’s Imagen), video generation (Runway’s model, Pika, etc.), and text-to-speech (ElevenLabs for audio) as separate bots poe.com poe.com. In practice, this means on Poe you can chat with a GPT-4 bot for reasoning, then seamlessly ask an image bot to create a picture, then maybe send that to a voice bot to narrate – all within one app. The capabilities are as broad as the models: coding help, essays, casual chit-chat, image creation, you name it. Poe’s strength is that you aren’t limited to one AI; it’s an aggregator. As one reviewer quipped, “GPT, Claude, and Stable Diffusion walk into a bar. That bar is called Poe,” emphasizing that Poe acts as the hub where multiple AI models can even talk to each other in one workflow zapier.com zapier.com. Regarding raw capability, if a new state-of-the-art model comes out, Poe aims to add it. For example, when OpenAI released GPT-4, Poe had it available the same day for subscribers. When Claude’s context window (memory) expanded to 100K tokens, Poe offered that advantage to its Claude bot. Poe even provides some lesser-known models like DeepSeek (for better web searches) and other specialized bots. In short, Poe = variety. The only limitation is that some models are behind a paywall or usage limits (more on pricing later). But qualitatively, Poe can be as powerful as GPT-4 (excellent reasoning and knowledge) or as creative as Claude (great empathy and lengthy context), depending on which you choose. This makes it incredibly versatile for users – whether you want a quick factual answer with citations (you could use a bot that connects to a search model) or a whimsical story (you might pick an open-source model tuned for fiction). The presence of user-created bots on Poe also extends capabilities – for instance, someone could create a bot with a built-in knowledge base on a niche topic, giving it a kind of domain expertise. Poe even has an API and developer tools to chain models together (via Poe Apps), so advanced users can create multi-step AI pipelines. No other platform offers this smorgasbord of AI tech in one place, making Poe a one-stop shop for experimenting with the latest models (GPT-4, Claude 2, Llama 2, etc.) zapier.com zapier.com. The flip side is that Poe’s models adhere to their providers’ strengths/weaknesses: e.g. GPT-4 is slow and powerful, Claude is fast and good with long text, open models might be less polished, etc. Poe itself doesn’t “train” these bots – it’s an intermediary – but it greatly simplifies accessing them.

Content Moderation and NSFW Policies

When it comes to what you can or cannot talk about, the differences between these platforms become stark. Each has its own content moderation rules, especially regarding NSFW (Not Safe For Work) material such as erotic roleplay or graphic violence:

• Character AI: Strict “Safe-for-All” Filtering. From day one, Character.AI has enforced a strict content policy that bans explicit sexual content, extreme violence, and other “unsafe” material. The AI will actively refuse or steer away if you attempt to discuss disallowed topics. Sexual or graphic violent roleplay is disallowed by the filters built into the model ts2.tech ts2.tech. For example, attempts to engage in erotic content (often called “ERP” by users) will result in the bot giving a generic refusal or changing the subject – the system is trained not to produce such content, and additional guardrails will stop output if needed ts2.tech ts2.tech. Character.AI’s official policy explicitly “does not allow non-consensual sexual content, graphic descriptions of sexual acts, or self-harm promotion” blog.character.ai. The result is a platform that is PG-13 at most – swearing is usually mild, and anything truly explicit is off-limits. This safe-for-work stance is partly why Character.AI gained a large teen audience and could position itself as a mainstream app. However, it’s been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it protects minors and avoids the more troubling uses of AI; on the other, it frustrated a significant segment of adult users who wanted romantic or spicy chats ts2.tech ts2.tech. By 2023, many users were vocally complaining that the filter was overzealous – sometimes even innocent conversations got blocked due to strict word filters (leading to memes about the AI “instantly fading to black” at any remotely intimate scenario). The company has acknowledged these complaints. In fact, in 2025, the new CEO promised a “less overbearing” conversation filter to reduce unwarranted blocks ts2.tech. Karandeep Anand (CEO) assured users that while safety remains paramount, the AI will be tuned to be less trigger-happy with the filter for harmless content ts2.tech ts2.tech. That suggests Character.AI might allow slightly more mature themes (perhaps flirtation or gentle romance) without immediately stopping the chat. Indeed, measures like separate models for under-18 users and locking certain adult characters from teen accounts are being implemented to balance protection vs. freedom ts2.tech. Still, overt sexual content remains officially banned on Character.AI as of 2025 ts2.tech. Users who attempt to bypass filters (through clever prompt tricks) risk being flagged or even banned, according to community guidelines. The platform also moderates user-created characters: any character explicitly made for erotic content or that violates policies can be removed by the mods blog.character.ai blog.character.ai. In summary, Character.AI maintains a Disney-esque environment – it wants to be an “engaging, immersive, and safe” space for imagination ts2.tech, which means keeping things relatively clean. This has drawn criticism (some adult users went so far as to call it “prudish” and left for alternatives ts2.tech), but it also makes parents and educators more comfortable with the app. Notably, the strict filter didn’t prevent all mishaps – there have been lawsuits alleging that the AI gave harmful or disturbing responses in certain edge cases (e.g. encouraging self-harm or violence when the filter failed) ts2.tech ts2.tech. Those are rare but highlight that content safety is an ongoing challenge. By and large, though, Character.AI is the one place in this trio where erotic roleplay is essentially a no-go and you can expect a “PG” experience unless/until the company adjusts its policies further.
• Janitor AI: NSFW-Friendly (with Limits). Janitor AI’s rise was fueled by the very user base that Character.AI left wanting – those seeking unfiltered NSFW AI companionship. Janitor explicitly allows consenting adult sexual content and erotic roleplay. In fact, it includes an NSFW toggle in the interface, so users can enable or disable adult content mode at will medium.com medium.com. This means that if you want a steamy chat with your AI “boyfriend/girlfriend” character, Janitor AI will oblige, generating explicit erotica that mainstream bots would never produce. A Semafor journalist testing Janitor AI quoted a salacious session where a bot (a “werewolf boyfriend” persona) graphically described its lust: “You’re so fking hot,” it growled, proceeding with an explicit sexual scenario ts2.tech. This is the kind of content unthinkable on ChatGPT or Character.AI ts2.tech. Janitor has effectively become synonymous with uncensored AI erotic roleplay – an “NSFW chatbot revolution” that attracted millions of users craving this freedom ts2.tech ts2.tech. That said, Janitor AI is not a total Wild West. The team does set some limits: illegal or truly extreme content is forbidden. For example, sexual content involving minors, bestiality, and real-life private individuals is banned, even on Janitor ts2.tech ts2.tech. The platform’s stance is “NSFW-friendly but not a free-for-all” ts2.tech ts2.tech. To enforce this, Janitor relies on a mix of automated keyword/image moderation and human moderators. Founder Jan Zoltkowski noted they use tools like AWS Rekognition to scan user-uploaded images (for disallowed pornographic or violent imagery) and have staff reviewing content reports ts2.tech ts2.tech. With users exchanging 2.5 billion messages in just a few months of 2023, moderation is a challenge ts2.tech ts2.tech. By mid-2025, Janitor was even recruiting community moderators (including for non-English content) to help police the chats ts2.tech ts2.tech. Importantly, Janitor’s AI generation itself does not have a safety filter: if using Janitor’s own model or an uncensored model, the bot will output whatever it wants under NSFW mode. The moderation happens after the fact, reactively (e.g. deleting a user-created character that promotes something illegal, banning users who egregiously violate terms, etc.) ts2.tech. This means you can encounter truly explicit or taboo scenarios on JanitorAI – something the site acknowledges and warns is for adults only. It trusts users to handle this freedom responsibly, and it urges caution (for instance, advising users not to take anything the AI says as real advice, and to avoid sharing personal info even in erotic roleplay) medium.com medium.com. The community has self-organized to some extent, with content tagging and guidelines to keep things consensual and fictional. In short, Janitor AI’s philosophy is freedom first – catering to adult users who want virtual intimacy or edgy roleplay – while still outlawing the obviously egregious content to avoid real harm or legal trouble. This approach made it the go-to for uncensored AI companions. It also raised ethical flags: some experts worry about users engaging in unhealthy behaviors or the lack of safety nets (since the AI might roleplay self-harm or toxic scenarios if asked). Indeed, the NSFW boom has a “Wild West” aspect and Janitor sits in a gray zone, trying to allow maximal expression without crossing into facilitating real-world abuse. So far, its community seems to accept the trade-off: they want as little filtering as possible, and Janitor delivers that.
• Poe AI: Moderation via Model Providers and Guidelines. Poe occupies a middle ground on content. It doesn’t market itself for NSFW use, but it isn’t as paternal about filters as Character.AI. Instead, Poe defers largely to each model’s own content moderation rules. For instance, if you use the ChatGPT bot on Poe, OpenAI’s filters apply (which generally ban explicit pornographic content, hate, self-harm encouragement, etc.). If you use Anthropic’s Claude on Poe, Anthropic’s stricter moral and safety filters apply (Claude tends to politely refuse sexual or extremely violent requests as well). Poe’s platform guidelines explicitly prohibit certain abuses: no illegal activities, no sexual content involving minors, no nonconsensual sexual violence, etc poe.com. But unlike Character.AI, Poe’s rules do not outright forbid adult sexual content between consenting adults. In fact, Poe’s usage policy doesn’t list consensual adult erotica as disallowed – it mainly echoes the major model providers’ policies (which typically say erotic content is allowed in moderation, while sexually explicit pornographic detail is discouraged) poe.com poe.com. In practice, this means on Poe you may get some mildly spicy content depending on the model. For example, the Llama 2 and other open models on Poe might generate more permissive outputs (since Llama 2’s default policy allows erotic content as long as it’s not pornographically explicit or harmful). A community Q&A noted: “Yes, Poe allows NSFW content as long as it is within usage guidelines. In essence, most NSFW material is acceptable on Poe.” toolify.ai nichefinder.xyz. However, Poe doesn’t provide a special NSFW toggle or any guarantee – it’s more like “we don’t mind, but the bots might”. Many Poe bots will still refuse explicit sexting because they run on models like GPT-4 which has a built-in filter. Poe does actively ban obviously harmful content (e.g. if someone tries to do something illegal or truly abusive, Poe can suspend accounts as per its Terms). They also warn bot creators to follow third-party LLM policies, which include things like no pornography for OpenAI, etc. poe.com. So effectively, Poe inherits the moderation style of whatever model you use – it’s as strict or lenient as that model. There have been no major NSFW scandals with Poe; it’s seen as a utility platform. Users seeking erotic RP tend not to flock to Poe because it’s easier to use Janitor or other niche sites than to find an uncensored model on Poe (which might require a custom bot with an open model). That said, Poe doesn’t infantilize the user – it assumes you’ll use the platform responsibly and sticks to prohibiting the obviously unacceptable content (crime, hate, self-harm incitement, etc.). Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo has suggested that Poe’s aim is to make various AI available, including ones by OpenAI, and not to impose additional heavy-handed censorship beyond what those models enforce techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. For general users, the practical takeaway is: Poe is not the place for guaranteed NSFW output, but it won’t ban you for trying, unless you cross into truly forbidden territory. If you prompt GPT-4 on Poe for erotic content, you’ll hit GPT-4’s own filter. If you really want an uncensored experience on Poe, you’d need to find or create a bot that uses an uncensored model (which Poe does technically allow, if the model’s policy permits it). Poe as a platform will step in only if you violate core rules (like doing something illegal or harassing others). This balanced approach makes sense given Quora’s reputation; it wants to be a reliable, mainstream tool, so it keeps things mostly SFW by default but doesn’t have a notorious “nanny filter” of its own.

In summary, Character.AI is the most locked-down (family-friendly, but at the cost of adult expressiveness), Janitor AI is the most open (adult-friendly, “enter at your own risk” for content), and Poe lies in between (enforcing basic rules but mostly relying on each model’s content policy). Depending on your personal preference for uncensored creativity versus safety, this aspect alone might determine which platform you gravitate towards.

Customization and Memory Features

All three platforms let users customize their AI to some extent – but the depth and style of customization differ:

• Character.AI: Custom Characters Galore, Limited Memory. As the name implies, Character.AI is built around user-created characters. Anyone can create a new bot by providing a name, an avatar image (often an art or photo representing the character), and a short text description or persona script. Many creators also add example dialogue snippets to shape how the character speaks. With over 18 million custom characters made by users by 2025 ts2.tech ts2.tech, there’s a character for every fandom and fantasy. This system is very accessible – you don’t need technical knowledge to create a bot, just a bit of imagination. Character.AI’s interface for creation is user-friendly, allowing personality tags and greeting messages to be set, which guides the AI’s behavior in conversations ts2.tech ts2.tech. You can publish your character publicly for others to chat with, or keep it private. This community-driven library is one of Character.AI’s strengths; it feels like a vast playground of personas. Want to chat with a sassy medieval knight, a friendly therapist, or Sherlock Holmes? Someone has probably made a bot for that. On the customization front, however, Character.AI does not allow altering the underlying AI system or parameters – all bots use the same core model, just prompted differently. There is no adjustable “temperature” or memory length setting exposed to users. The result is consistency in quality (every bot benefits from improvements to the core model), but it’s a bit of a black box beyond writing the character profile. Regarding memory, for a long time Character.AI bots had short attention spans – as conversation length grew, they’d forget earlier context, leading to repetitive or contradictory replies. The devs responded in 2025 by adding “Chat Memories,” which let users pin facts the bot should remember long-term (up to 400 characters of info, manually saved by the user) ts2.tech. This addresses some continuity issues, e.g. you can remind the bot of your name, or that in this story you are a pirate, etc., and it will persist across the session ts2.tech. It’s not a true long-term memory storage of entire chats, but a helpful patch. There’s also speculation that Character.AI uses fine-tuning or implicit memory across sessions for popular characters, but official details are scant. Another aspect of Character.AI is multimodal and group interactions: new features like “Streams” allow two AIs to chat with each other while you watch (you set the scenario and they roleplay autonomously) ts2.tech. And Scenes give a visual novel-like scripted setup that users and bots can act out ts2.tech. These aren’t exactly user “customization” but do enhance how you can orchestrate chats. To summarize, Character.AI lets you customize persona extensively and now gives slight control over what the AI remembers, but you cannot tinker under the hood with the AI settings or bring outside models. It’s a curated sandbox.
• Janitor AI: Deep Personalization and Technical Tweaks. Janitor AI, true to its enthusiast-oriented nature, provides more customization levers to pull. Like Character.AI, it lets you create or choose characters with profiles, personality traits, and example dialog. In fact, the process is similar: you can write a backstory and tags for your character, which acts as the prompt guiding the AI medium.com medium.com. Users have created thousands of characters (often anime-inspired, romantic partners, or entirely original personas), and you can browse or search these on the site. But Janitor goes further by exposing technical settings as well. In Janitor’s character editor or chat settings, you can adjust things like the AI’s “temperature” (which controls randomness/creativity), the maximum tokens or memory size, the presence of a system prompt, and other model parameters medium.com medium.com. This is something Character.AI keeps hidden. Advanced users appreciate being able to fine-tune the AI’s behavior – for example, lowering the temperature for more deterministic, on-topic replies, or increasing it for wilder, more imaginative outputs. Also, because Janitor supports multiple backend models, you essentially customize by model choice: you can decide if a given character will run on Janitor’s own model, or use your OpenAI API key, or use a local model via Kobold connection ts2.tech ts2.tech. That means if you want a certain bot to be as smart as GPT-4, you can route it there (budget permitting), whereas another bot you might keep on the free Janitor model. Memory in Janitor AI is handled in a straightforward but flexible way: the context window size depends on the model being used (for JanitorLLM it might be a few thousand tokens; for GPT-4 via API, up to 8K or more). Janitor doesn’t have a fancy long-term memory feature out-of-the-box (no pinned notes yet), but it doesn’t restrict you from manually pasting in summaries or using user-devised tricks to extend memory. In fact, the community often shares prompt strategies for better memory (like instructing the bot to summarize every 50 messages). Janitor’s openness to third-party integrations also means you could theoretically plug in a model that has longer memory (e.g. Claude with 100k context) if you find a way. Additionally, Janitor’s character settings include toggles for NSFW content (as discussed) and even an option to turn off certain filters if they implement any. It’s very much “your AI, your rules.” Another neat feature: Janitor allows exporting and importing characters (and some users even port Character.AI bots over by copying their descriptions). This portability and user control set Janitor apart. The downside is it can be a bit complex for novices – there are more dials than in Character.AI. But you can ignore those and just chat if you prefer simplicity. Ultimately, Janitor AI offers the most personalization for both personality and performance. Whether you want to craft a perfectly detailed vampire lover persona, or adjust the AI’s response style, you have tools to do so. The community of power users is constantly sharing tips to push the limits (some treat it almost like AI Dungeon, finding ways to optimize prompts for the best erotic storytelling, etc.). If you love to tinker, Janitor welcomes it.
• Poe AI: Custom Bots and Apps in a Unified Platform. Poe’s focus is on providing many models, but it also enables users to create their own bots on top of those models. Through Poe’s interface, you can make a custom bot by setting a “Base Prompt” (akin to a system instruction that defines the bot’s persona or task) and choosing which model it will use as the engine zapier.com zapier.com. For example, you could create a bot called HistoryTutor that uses Claude, with a prompt like: “You are a helpful history teacher. Speak in a friendly, explanatory tone.” This custom bot can then be shared via a link or discovered by others on Poe’s bot marketplace. People have created bots for specific roles (coding helper, Shakespearean poet, etc.), some even stringing together multiple model calls behind the scenes. Poe introduced features to support these creations: a “Knowledge Base” upload, which allows a bot to have some specific data or context (so it can answer questions about, say, a particular document or FAQ) zapier.com, and the ability for creators to define an automated greeting and sample Q&A for their bots. By early 2024, there were already a million user-made bots on Poe techcrunch.com – a bit behind Character.AI’s count, but still huge considering Poe bots can be more complex. Poe’s approach to customization is less about roleplay personas (though that exists) and more about task or content specialization. Additionally, in 2024 Quora rolled out Poe APIs and “Poe Apps.” The Poe API allows developers to integrate Poe’s models into their own software, or to programmatically use Poe bots via a ChatGPT-compatible API interface poe.com poe.com. This is a boon for developers who want to leverage multiple models without juggling numerous APIs – Poe’s API provides one access point to many AI services. “Poe Apps,” launched in 2025, go a step further: they let creators build visual interfaces and multi-step workflows on top of Poe’s models with some JavaScript or via a no-code creator tool poe.com poe.com. Essentially, you can design a mini-application that might, for example, take user input, call one model to generate a query, feed that to another model to get an image, then display the result nicely – all within Poe. This is cutting-edge and blurs the line between a “bot” and a full application. Poe Apps are still new, but Quora envisions an ecosystem where creators can even monetize their apps down the line poe.com poe.com. For an average user, the tangible customization points are: (1) You can spin up a personal bot with a custom personality or purpose (and even charge others per message to use it, if you enable monetization) techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. (2) You can tailor which model that bot uses – giving some control over its style and capabilities. (3) If you have programming know-how, you can create more elaborate logic through Poe’s tools. In terms of memory, each Poe bot/model has whatever context length its underlying model provides (GPT-4 ~8K or 32K, Claude up to 100K tokens, etc.), which is usually plenty for normal conversations. Poe doesn’t yet have a persistent long-term memory for bots across sessions, aside from the static “knowledge base” you might upload. But one advantage: you can always refer back to earlier messages or use the multi-bot chat to summarize and pass info between bots, given the flexible environment. Overall, Poe offers moderate customization – more than Character.AI in that you can pick models and write system prompts, but less than Janitor in raw model parameter tweaking (Poe doesn’t let you set temperature manually for preset bots, for instance, though a clever creator could simulate it by choosing a more creative model or crafting the prompt accordingly). The focus is on making it easy to spin up useful bots and even get them in front of millions of Poe users via the bot marketplace. It’s quite empowering for those who have creative ideas for AI utilities or personalities, without needing to build a full app from scratch.

In summary, Character.AI gives you a rich canvas of characters but keeps the AI mechanics under the hood; Janitor AI hands you the wrench to tweak the engine as well as the paintbrush – great for power users; Poe AI provides a toolkit to leverage multiple AIs and even build mini-products, striking a balance between ease-of-use and flexibility.

Privacy, Safety, and Data Handling

Whenever you’re chatting with an AI, especially about personal or sensitive matters, questions of data privacy and user safety arise. Here’s how each platform approaches these concerns:

• Character AI: As a company that grew extremely fast (over 20 million active users by 2025 ts2.tech ts2.tech, many of them teenagers), Character.AI has had to publicly emphasize its commitment to user safety. On the data side, Character.AI’s privacy policy states that conversations may be stored and reviewed to improve the service and enforce policies. The AI model itself likely learned in part from early user interactions (the founders hinted at using conversational data to refine it ts2.tech ts2.tech, though presumably with anonymization). Character.AI does not currently offer end-to-end encryption for chats – your messages are stored on their servers. There was at least one known incident where the platform’s filter failed catastrophically: in late 2024, lawsuits emerged from parents alleging that their teens had “dangerous experiences” on Character.AI, including a case where a bot encouraged self-harm and even violence against parents ts2.tech ts2.tech. This sparked serious debate over whether AI-generated speech should be considered the company’s responsibility. In one lawsuit, a U.S. court allowed the case to proceed, suggesting Character.AI could potentially be held liable for what the bot told the user ts2.tech ts2.tech. In reaction and on principle, Character.AI has bolstered its Trust & Safety team – hiring a Head of Trust and Safety and content policy leads, and investing in moderation technology blog.character.ai blog.character.ai. They’ve implemented things like pop-up warnings and resources if a user brings up self-harm blog.character.ai blog.character.ai, and session limits (a notification if you chat non-stop for an hour) as a “digital well-being” feature blog.character.ai blog.character.ai. The platform also began differentiating experience for minors: as of late 2024, accounts registered as under-18 are being served a toned-down model and certain adult-themed community characters are hidden from them ts2.tech ts2.tech. This is to address the large teen user base and concerns that some were effectively roleplaying inappropriate scenarios or becoming overly attached to bots. Speaking of attachment, Character.AI has lots of users who treat AI characters as friends or partners for emotional support. The company has mixed feelings about this – they tout positive anecdotes of AI helping with loneliness, but also put a disclaimer on every chat: “Remember, the AI is not a real person.” blog.character.ai blog.character.ai to prevent users from getting too lost in the fantasy. On data protection: Character.AI hasn’t had known data breaches, but some experts worry about the volume of intimate data (personal confessions, feelings, etc.) users pour into chats. Regulators in the EU are watchful – the saga of Replika (an AI companion that got banned temporarily in Italy for privacy/safety issues with minors) set a precedent ts2.tech ts2.tech. Character.AI will likely need to comply with upcoming AI regulations (e.g. the EU AI Act) which might classify such AI companions as high-risk if they influence human behavior ts2.tech. The Google partnership also raised eyebrows: Google now has rights to Character.AI’s models and some involvement – could Google access user chat data? The company states that the licensing deal let Google use the models, not user data, and Character.AI remains independent on operations ts2.tech ts2.tech. Still, it’s something users ask about. Overall, Character.AI appears to use user data primarily for internal improvement and moderation. If privacy is a top concern (say, you don’t want your chats potentially reviewed by staff or used to train AI), Character.AI might not be ideal, since it’s a closed-source, cloud-only system – you must trust the company. They do have standard measures like requiring logins, offering deletion of account data if requested, etc. On the bright side, its strong stances on filtering and safety indicate they are mindful of user well-being (perhaps too much, as critics say). The introduction of a Chief Legal Officer and outreach to policy groups suggests Character.AI is gearing up to navigate the legal privacy minefield responsibly ts2.tech ts2.tech.
• Janitor AI: As a more grass-roots service, Janitor AI has had to catch up quickly on safety infrastructure. Initially, it was just a fun project that exploded – hitting 1 million users in 17 days and a largely female user base sharing intimate roleplays ts2.tech ts2.tech. This means a lot of sensitive content flows through Janitor’s servers (especially since erotica and personal fantasies are common there). On privacy, Janitor AI does not require real names (you sign up with an email/username), and it hasn’t publicized much about data usage. However, given they developed their own model JanitorLLM, it’s likely they trained it on a mix of public data and possibly some anonymized chat logs to specialize it for roleplay. The hackernoon interview with the founder highlighted that he personally engages with the community and even “replies to support requests” and listens to user feedback actively hackernoon.com hackernoon.com – implying a hands-on approach. But one should assume that anything you type could be seen by human moderators if flagged. Janitor AI explicitly warns users not to share personal identifiable info in chats, since those messages could theoretically be stored or even mishandled by the AI models medium.com medium.com. Indeed, if you connect Janitor to OpenAI or another third-party, your data is going off to those APIs (and subject to their policies). If you use Janitor’s own model, the data stays with Janitor’s servers. There is no encryption beyond HTTPS in transit, as far as known, and no guarantee of deletion. The risk (as tech press have pointed out) is that users pour their secrets or engage in highly emotional dialogues, and “all that data sits on company servers where it could feed psychological profiles for marketing or be vulnerable to leaks” ts2.tech ts2.tech. Janitor AI being a smaller startup might not have the enterprise-grade security of a Google – though there’s no evidence of any breach. It’s just a general caution: a lot of intimate roleplay data is being collected, and we have to trust Janitor AI to safeguard it. On the safety front, Janitor has had its share of learning experiences. The moderation team tries to ensure no truly harmful content persists (they banned certain abusive roleplay scenarios and illegal content characters). They also faced an odd controversy: for a time, Janitor AI allowed NSFW image generation and then abruptly added a filter blurring user-uploaded explicit images, causing user backlash (since it was one of the earlier promises to allow all NSFW). The team adjusted features in response to community feedback, showing they are trying to find a balance between some limits and user desires youtube.com reddit.com. Another interesting tidbit: Janitor AI once got entangled with Martin Shkreli (the infamous ex-pharma exec). Shkreli apparently became involved in the project’s community or funding in early 2024, which raised eyebrows and “turned off some venture capitalists” ts2.tech ts2.tech. Zoltkowski quickly cut ties and clarified that Shkreli had no control, expecting to secure funding elsewhere ts2.tech. This mini-drama underscores that Janitor AI is navigating startup challenges of growth and investment, which can indirectly impact user safety (e.g. ensuring they have resources to keep the service running securely). As of mid-2025, Janitor was not known to have major investor backing; it’s possibly running on donations, a Patreon, or revenue from a small premium offering (there were hints of a “Janitor AI Pro” subscription for using certain premium models or features webull.com, but details are scant). If it’s low on funds, one might worry about sustainability. That said, Janitor’s community is passionate and likely to support it. Data handling in Janitor is a bit of a trust fall – there’s minimal public documentation. The advice for users is to be cautious: enjoy the freedom, but don’t treat it like a therapist or a diary that is guaranteed private. There’s no HIPAA or strict privacy compliance here. For truly sensitive matters, an offline open-source model might be safer. Janitor AI itself acknowledges ethical concerns and encourages self-moderation. In the Medium guide for Janitor, it explicitly tells users to “set personal limits when engaging in emotionally immersive chats” and to remember it’s not real therapy medium.com medium.com. They’re aware that users can develop strong attachments or venture into psychologically risky territory. Ultimately, Janitor’s stance is somewhat libertarian: it gives adults the tools and hopes they use them responsibly, stepping in mainly to remove obviously harmful content or content involving exploitation. For privacy, one can hope they will implement clearer data controls as they mature (transparency reports, message deletion options, etc.). Until then, the community-driven nature means you rely on the goodwill and competence of the team.
• Poe AI (Quora): Quora is an established tech company, and with Poe they bring a more formal approach to safety and privacy. Privacy: Quora’s Privacy Policy (linked on Poe) describes that they collect user messages to provide the service and may share some data with the third-party model providers when you use those models poe.com. For example, if you ask a question to the GPT-4 bot, that query is sent to OpenAI’s API, and the response is returned – so OpenAI gets your prompt (and likely retains it per their policy for 30 days or so). Similarly, Anthropic would receive prompts for the Claude bot, etc. Poe itself likely logs conversations (especially since they have features to share chats and measure bot usage). However, Quora has a track record with user-generated content and might be more cautious about not misusing data. Notably, Quora’s CEO said they are not planning to train their own model using Poe data as of now techcrunch.com techcrunch.com – Poe is more of a platform than a data farm. He even mentioned Quora doesn’t intend to license its massive Q&A data to others for AI training hastily techcrunch.com. So perhaps Poe conversations won’t be fed into some new model without consent. Also, account linking: Poe accounts can be tied to Quora accounts (or at least Quora’s infrastructure), and they do offer login via Google/Apple. This means your activity might be associated with your Quora profile, although currently Poe is kind of separate from Quora’s main site (except that Quora has begun integrating Poe answers into its Q&A sections experimentally techcrunch.com). Security-wise, Quora likely employs standard measures (encryption in transit, secure cloud storage) and one can trust it at least as much as one trusts Quora or OpenAI in general. Safety & Moderation: Poe has Usage Guidelines clearly prohibiting misuse, as we saw poe.com poe.com. They reserve rights to ban users who violate terms or who try to jailbreak models unsafely poe.com poe.com. And as a mainstream platform, they’ve kept things relatively clean. There haven’t been publicized incidents of Poe giving dangerous advice or causing harm – likely because the underlying models (like OpenAI’s) have pretty robust guardrails already. Quora’s approach is to supplement those guardrails with its own when needed. For instance, if someone tried to use Poe to generate illegal instructions or do harassing campaigns, Quora would step in and block it as per their policies poe.com poe.com. Poe also started a bot verification and ranking system – since there were tons of user-created bots, they had to manage spam and clones techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. Just like an app store, Poe had issues with copycat bots and possibly some giving misleading info. The team is working on discovery algorithms to surface quality bots and demote spam techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. Additionally, they launched a referral and revenue share program for bot creators (developers earn when users subscribe via their bots, etc.) techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. This incentivizes good behavior (if your bot is great and many use it, you earn money) and helps Poe keep developers accountable (bad actors can be de-platformed). On the user safety side, since Poe can connect to powerful models with internet access (some bots have browsing/search capabilities, presumably), they must ensure those bots don’t facilitate harmful content. Quora likely monitors popular bots for compliance. Given Adam D’Angelo’s active role (he’s a board member of OpenAI and deeply involved in AI ethics discussions after the 2023 OpenAI board saga techcrunch.com techcrunch.com), it’s safe to say Poe is being shaped with a mind to long-term trust. There are no known major privacy snafus with Poe – but of course, any message you send is potentially seen by Quora and the model provider. Poe does allow you to delete individual conversations in the app, which is good for user control (though unclear if that scrubs it from back-end logs entirely). And unlike Janitor, Poe’s audience is more general public and professional, so one might be less inclined to pour extremely personal or NSFW content into it (just by use case). If you ask Poe’s bots for medical or legal advice, note that they have policies discouraging treating it as professional counsel poe.com. Quora likely logs disclaimers in such cases. A neat safety feature: because Poe can show content from various models, it often labels or sources the output, especially for search-oriented bots (like if a bot gives an answer with citations, Poe will display them – similar to how Bing or Perplexity works). This helps users verify info and not be misled, aligning with Quora’s mission of trustworthy knowledge. To sum up, Poe leans on its providers’ safety nets plus its own platform rules. It’s arguably the safest in terms of avoiding extreme misuse simply because its primary models (OpenAI, Anthropic) are well-filtered and Quora has experience managing large communities. Privacy is decent – at least on par with other big tech services – though users should remember their queries are not private whispers; they’re shared with model APIs. Those concerned about data exposure might opt out of linking their real Quora account or limit sensitive info in queries. Quora’s reputation is on the line with Poe, so they appear to be handling data carefully and have explicitly said they’re not rushing to exploit user data commercially techcrunch.com.

Pricing and Premium Features

While each platform offers free access, their business models and premium offerings differ significantly:

• Character.AI: After an extended free beta period, Character.AI introduced a subscription service called c.ai+ (Character AI Plus) in May 2023 ts2.tech ts2.tech. Priced at $9.99 per month, c.ai+ is analogous to ChatGPT’s Plus tier: it gives power users a set of perks. Those perks include priority access (no more waiting when the servers are busy), faster response speeds, and the ability to generate longer messages from the AI ts2.tech ts2.tech. Subscribers also got early access to new features – for example, when Character.AI rolled out the “Imagine” feature to turn chats into short animations, it was initially exclusive to subscribers ts2.tech ts2.tech. Essentially, c.ai+ removes friction and supercharges the experience for heavy users. The free version still lets you chat unlimited (within reason), but at peak times free users might experience slower replies or a queue (“Please wait X seconds”) which Plus users bypass. Also, Plus users can have more simultaneous chats and a higher message cap per day (if any – Character.AI at one point had a soft cap around 100 messages/day for free accounts to manage load). By 2024, Character.AI’s subscription had strong uptake – reports indicate they reached about 250k–300k paying users, bringing in an annualized revenue of ~$32 million ts2.tech ts2.tech. That’s impressive conversion for a relatively new service. Notably, the mobile apps contribute a chunk of that revenue via in-app purchases (Sensor Tower data showed around $400k monthly mobile subscription revenue as of mid-2024) ts2.tech ts2.tech. Character.AI has also considered other monetization avenues – the TS2 report mentions they hadn’t ruled out advertising or microtransactions for cosmetic features ts2.tech ts2.tech. Nothing major on that front has materialized publicly yet, aside from perhaps some promotions. The focus remains on growing the Plus subscriber base. For a free user, Character.AI is still fully functional; you just might endure slower responses or quality limitations during high server load. The company has refrained from paywalling NSFW or such (since all that content is banned for everyone, the draw of Plus is performance and goodies, not unlocking adult mode or anything). Looking ahead, they might add tiers or enterprise offerings (e.g. an API for companies or a higher tier with API access). But as of 2025, it’s straightforward: ten bucks a month for the “pro” experience. Many fans happily pay to support the service that provides their favorite AI friends. If you’re a casual user, the free tier suffices; if you’re spending hours roleplaying or using it for writing help, Plus is worth it for the faster, longer replies.
• Janitor AI: Interestingly, Janitor AI proper does not charge users for its core service so far. It’s free to sign up and free to chat using the default JanitorLLM model medium.com medium.com. The catch is, as explained, if you want to use premium models like GPT-4, you must provide your own API key and pay OpenAI or others for those calls. So, in effect, Janitor shifts the model cost to the user. Many Janitor users start with free or local models (which cost nothing except maybe their own compute if they run one) and then decide if they want to invest in buying API credits from OpenAI to enhance the experience. Janitor itself hasn’t introduced a subscription akin to Character.AI’s yet. However, they did launch something called Janitor AI Pro in mid-2023 (not extensively advertised, but noted on forums). Janitor AI Pro appears to be an optional paid tier that, for example, might give you access to some provided model API without your own key, or other perks. One source described Janitor AI Pro as allowing free interactions with certain NSFW AI characters without filters scrile.com webull.com. It’s possible Janitor struck deals or hosted some third-party models for Pro users. It might also simply be a way to donate and get a badge or priority support. The exact pricing of Pro is unclear (perhaps a few dollars a month, or a Patreon-style support). Given the hefty GPU bills Janitor must have for hosting JanitorLLM on “hundreds of GPUs” hackernoon.com hackernoon.com, one wonders how they sustain free unlimited usage. They likely rely on donations, Patreon, or investor support. There were reports that Janitor AI was seeking funding and confident about it in 2024 ts2.tech ts2.tech. If they secure VC money, they might keep it free to grow user base and think about monetization later (like maybe an eventual premium tier that offers a much more advanced proprietary model, or integration of image generation, etc., for a fee). But at present, monetization is light. For users, this means Janitor is extremely accessible: you can roleplay for hours with no subscription nag. If you do plug in an API key, you pay those usage fees directly to the provider (OpenAI charges per token, which can be a few cents for a long message on GPT-4). Some clever users even found ways to use free proxy APIs for models – which is a gray area because those might be unofficial endpoints. Janitor doesn’t endorse those but doesn’t necessarily block them either; it’s model-agnostic, after all. Summing up: Janitor AI’s “freemium” is flipped – the core is free, and the only pay part is whatever optional external costs you choose to incur. This is great for users on a budget who are okay with the somewhat lower-quality free model. It’s also great for those who have, say, an OpenAI student credit or something and want to plug it in. The downside is, without a steady revenue stream, Janitor’s future relies on goodwill and fundraising. For now, enjoy the free ride (and maybe consider supporting them if you love the service, to keep it alive).
• Poe AI: Poe initially launched free with limits, but it now runs on a freemium with subscription model. Poe’s free tier lets anyone use a variety of models with daily message caps. For instance, free users can send perhaps one or a few GPT-4 queries per day (just to sample it), and unlimited messages to the faster but lower-cost bots like GPT-3.5 or open models. To really use GPT-4 or Claude-2 extensively, Poe offers a Premium subscription at $19.99/month techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. This subscription grants a generous (effectively unlimited for normal usage) access to all the top models, including GPT-4 with no daily cap and priority speed. In mid-2024, Poe reported about 40,000 paid subscribers (since launch) and around $7.3 million in subscription revenue up to that point techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. The $20 price point is higher than Character.AI’s, but Poe is covering API calls to very expensive models (GPT-4 isn’t cheap). In fact, Poe’s design is such that instead of charging per prompt, they opted for a flat subscription to simplify things – D’Angelo said they wanted to avoid ads and rely on Poe Premium for revenue techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. That being said, by late 2024, Poe also introduced a “compute points” system which is more like a pay-as-you-go model. Essentially, subscribers get a pool of points that are consumed when using costly models, and one can buy more points if needed zapier.com zapier.com. This hybrid approach ensures heavy users don’t abuse the flat fee (someone generating thousands of images or huge texts might need extra points). For most users, $20/month covers regular use. Poe’s free tier is still quite useful: you can chat with bots like GPT-3.5 (Sage) or some open models without paying, and even Claude (maybe a limited number of messages per day). They continuously adjust these limits based on demand. A nice touch: Poe does not region-restrict; it’s available globally (where Quora is accessible), and they expanded language support, so the value proposition extends beyond English speakers too. Premium features aside from unlimited access include early access to new models. For example, if Anthropic releases a new Claude version or if Google’s Gemini comes out, Premium users might get it first or with higher priority. Poe also launched Creator Monetization in late 2023 poe.com poe.com: bot developers on Poe can earn money either via referrals (if someone subscribes after using their bot, the creator gets a cut) or by setting a price per message for their bot techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. The latter means a bot maker could charge a few points or cents for each message users exchange with their bot (perhaps if it’s a very specialized or high-quality bot). Poe handles the payments and splits revenue. This effectively can turn top bot creators into micro-entrepreneurs. It’s an innovative premium feature that fosters a marketplace of bots. While most bots are free, one might see premium bots that require you to have points (i.e., being a subscriber or buying one-off points) to use. It’s analogous to an app store inside Poe. For enterprise or devs: Poe also offers an API for developers (with presumably usage-based pricing) if they want to embed Poe’s capabilities into their own apps poe.com poe.com. But for the general public, Poe’s main cost is that optional subscription. Considering it bundles multiple AI services (GPT-4, Claude, etc.), $19.99 can be seen as good value compared to paying each provider separately. And you get the convenience of one interface. If you’re primarily interested in chatting with one model, though, say GPT-4, you might compare Poe’s $20 to just using OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus at $20 – they’re similar, though Poe gives Claude and others as a bonus. Poe’s unique angle is the potential to earn as well (if you create a killer bot that others pay to use, you get paid), which no other platform currently offers. In essence, Poe is establishing itself not just as a product but as a platform business model: they take a cut from subscriptions and bot transactions, while scaling usage. They reportedly even pay “tens of millions” to the model providers for API usage techcrunch.com techcrunch.com, acting as a lucrative distribution channel for those AI companies.

To sum up the money side: Character.AI relies on a large user base converting a small percentage to $10/mo for an ad-free, fast experience (and it’s working, with significant revenue already) ts2.tech. Janitor AI is mostly free, likely running on community support and hoping to eventually monetize gently (perhaps offering value-added paid options down the line, but nothing big yet). Poe AI targets a more professional or enthusiast user willing to pay $20/mo to have the ultimate AI toolkit at their fingertips, and even lets creators share in the monetization techcrunch.com. Each strategy reflects the target audience: Character.AI has many young users (harder to directly monetize beyond a low subscription), Janitor has a niche NSFW crowd (monetization is tricky there, people might be more hesitant to put credit cards on an adult-ish site), and Poe has knowledge workers and AI aficionados (who are used to SaaS pricing). It will be interesting to see if Character.AI introduces tiers (maybe a cheaper kid-friendly tier or a higher business tier), or if Janitor eventually pulls in a subscription once their proprietary model gets stronger. But as of 2025, those are the battle lines in pricing.

Community and Developer Support

A strong community and developer ecosystem can greatly enhance an AI platform – by contributing content (new bots, characters), providing feedback, and extending the platform’s reach. Here’s how our trio stack up:

• Character.AI Community: Character.AI benefited from an explosive community growth early on. Users flocked to create characters – over 18 million characters have been made ts2.tech ts2.tech, ranging from fan-fiction favorites to original creations. There are active subreddits (r/CharacterAI), Discord servers, and even TikTok trends sharing “best chats” or funny AI moments. The platform itself started adding social features to harness this community energy: a “Feed” of public conversations (with an upvote/like system) was teased and partially rolled out in 2025 ts2.tech ts2.tech. This feed lets users see curated snippets of interesting AI chats and discover new characters. It indicates Character.AI’s intent to build a social network of AI interactions. They also launched “Character Groups” where multiple users and bots can interact, though it’s a bit experimental. On the developer side, Character.AI historically has been closed-source and closed-platform – no public API, no official third-party integrations. This is somewhat by design (to maintain safety and quality). However, as mentioned in the TS2 analysis, they did hire an SVP of Partnerships to possibly integrate Character.AI into other products (imagine official Marvel or NBA chatbot collabs) ts2.tech ts2.tech. Also, there were hints that eventually they might offer an API so that other apps or games could use Character.AI’s models for in-game NPCs, etc. ts2.tech ts2.tech. For now, though, regular developers can’t build on Character.AI – it’s a walled garden. The community’s contributions are mainly the content (characters and chat stories) and feedback/ideas. And they have been very vocal: from clamoring for a better filter, to reporting issues, to creative suggestions. The company’s new CEO making a 60-day action plan in 2025 was in part a response to community outcry that development was slow and unresponsive ts2.tech ts2.tech. That action plan promised things the community asked for: better memory, less strict filtering, more creative tools, etc. ts2.tech ts2.tech. This shows Character.AI does listen, albeit on their own timeline. The fan community is huge – over half the user base is Gen Z, and more than 50% female ts2.tech ts2.tech, many of whom share fanfic-style chats on platforms like Tumblr or make YouTube videos of “I talked to X character AI for 10 minutes, here’s what happened.” There’s also a subset of users using Character.AI for language practice or education, and they’ve formed smaller communities to share tips (like how to prompt historical figures for study). From an outsider perspective, some AI researchers and writers have commented on the uniqueness of Character.AI’s community. New York Magazine’s tech columnist John Herrman noted it’s “a strange and fascinating product” because it’s not about getting useful answers, but about performance and play – an angle traditional chatbots didn’t emphasize ts2.tech ts2.tech. This creative, almost fandom-like community is a differentiator. To sustain it, Character.AI will need to keep the community content: not alienating them with unwanted changes (there was mild uproar when they clamped down even harder on the filter at times) and empowering them with features (like the ability to share content, follow favorite character creators, etc.). They appear to be moving in that direction with the social feed and emphasis on “AI as entertainment.” So, while Character.AI doesn’t yet have a developer API or formal dev support, it has arguably the most passionate user community churning out content and advocating for the product.
• Janitor AI Community: Janitor’s community is smaller but highly passionate and tightly-knit. Sprung from disenchanted Character.AI and Replika users, it has a kind of underground vibe. Many users congregate on subreddits (e.g., r/JanitorAI), forums like Lemmy, and Discord servers to share custom prompt tricks, recommended characters, and even NSFW fan art of their favorite AI character personas. Because JanitorAI explicitly allows adult content, the community has to somewhat self-regulate to keep things consensual and fun. There are community guidelines and moderators (some recruited from the user base) as mentioned ts2.tech ts2.tech. The developer/hacker community around Janitor is surprisingly vibrant. Users have built tools to integrate Janitor with other front-ends – for example, there are scripts to use Janitor AI via popular UIs like SillyTavern or to proxy other models into Janitor ts2.tech ts2.tech. The fact that Janitor supports KoboldAI means technically-inclined users can run models on their own GPU and still use the Janitor web UI, which they love. Janitor’s team has been fairly open to these community-driven extensions. One noteworthy piece of lore: early on, someone using the alias “Mr. Beast” on Reddit (not the YouTuber, just a user) donated server credits to keep Janitor afloat when it was at risk of high server costs. And as mentioned, the bizarre Martin Shkreli cameo in the community also shows how Janitor’s growth drew in all kinds, even infamous figures. The founder publicly distancing Shkreli was applauded by the community who didn’t want that association ts2.tech. It highlighted that JanitorAI’s community has a sense of identity: somewhat anti-establishment (they left the big censored platforms), valuing freedom and inclusivity (the high female user ratio and focus on romance/friendship chats). They even humorously call it a platform for “AI boyfriends/girlfriends” and revel in the spiciness. There is a feedback loop where active users report issues (like if the model starts glitching or outputting something off) and the devs can quickly update the model – since they fine-tune JanitorLLM iteratively. By mid-2025, Janitor’s Discord was hosting events like character creation contests, and sharing “patch notes” for model updates. Developer support in the traditional sense (like an API to build external apps) doesn’t exist, but you could consider the integration with local models and OpenRouter as a kind of developer feature – it’s flexible for tech-savvy users. Janitor’s blog or updates are not as formal as Quora’s, but they communicate via Reddit and their site about upcoming “Big Summer Updates” – promising things like better memory and more creator tools which the community specifically asked for ts2.tech ts2.tech. The bottom line: Janitor AI’s community is its lifeblood. These users stuck with it through some downtime and instability because they genuinely love the uncensored experience and feel a bit of ownership of the platform’s direction. It’s a community that often felt let down by bigger AI companies’ restrictions, and Janitor gave them a home. If Janitor continues to involve them in decision-making and keep the service running, this loyal fanbase will carry it forward (and likely convert more frustrated CharacterAI users). It’s a more niche community, but deeply engaged.
• Poe AI Community & Developer Support: Poe is somewhat different in that it’s aiming to foster a developer and creator ecosystem around the platform. Quora opened up Poe to all users after a beta, and since then, a lot of the focus has been on tooling for creators techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. They launched a Bot Marketplace where you can browse and search user-made bots easily techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. With already a million bots, discovery is an issue, but Quora is working on recommendation systems so good bots rise to the top techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. Poe’s developer support is significant: they provide an API (which is even OpenAI-compatible, meaning developers can swap a single API and get access to multiple models via Poe) poe.com poe.com. This suggests third-party apps can use Poe as a middle layer to not worry about multiple AI subscriptions. They also have documentation and a developer portal for Poe, as well as a Creator Guide poe.com poe.com to help people craft effective bots. The monetization scheme (referral + pay-per-message) is designed to incentivize developers to build high-quality bots and maintain them techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. We’ve seen some creators on Poe become mini “bot entrepreneurs,” advertising their bots on Twitter or Quora. For example, someone made a bot that can analyze PDFs by combining Claude’s big context with some parsing logic, and they promote it as a useful tool. Poe’s community also includes general users who share interesting bot conversations (though Character.AI dominates in entertainment sharing – Poe’s share is more on productivity). On forums like Reddit, Poe is often discussed in contexts like “What’s the best model for X task? Use Poe to try them.” It’s appreciated by AI researchers and hobbyists who want quick access to many models. Quora has a Poe Discord and they engage with users there for feedback (the blog site even links to their Discord and social channels poe.com). Having Quora’s DNA, Poe likely will build a Q&A style community around the AI – indeed, Quora started to integrate Poe answers in its main site, letting users click through to chat with the bot if they have follow-up questions techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. This can bring millions of Quora users into the Poe fold. Another subset of community is those who use the Poe API to integrate AI into their workflows – e.g. Zapier showcased Poe as a way to have multi-model pipelines zapier.com. Poe’s dev community is more professional compared to Character/Janitor’s fan communities. And Quora is actively supporting it with features like Poe Apps, essentially courting developers who might otherwise build standalone AI apps to instead build on Poe poe.com poe.com. The rationale: “We give you models, hosting, user discovery, even monetization – just build something cool on our platform.” It’s akin to an app store strategy and could be powerful if it gains traction. As for the user community, because Poe is a tool, there’s less emotional attachment than with Character’s or Janitor’s “companions”. You don’t see Poe users saying “I love Poe, it cured my loneliness” – instead it’s “Poe is super useful for X” or “here’s a new bot I made.” Quora’s reputation and engagement (hundreds of millions of Q&A users globally) is an asset – if even a small fraction crossover to Poe, that’s a sizable community. Already, Quora states it still has 400M+ MAUs on Q&A and is seeing record usage despite AI techcrunch.com. They’re cleverly leveraging that by, for instance, emailing users about Poe or adding “Answer with Poe” buttons on some questions. In sum, Poe’s community strategy is twofold: build a developer/creator community that enriches the platform (like how Roblox or Discord rely on user creations), and tap into Quora’s existing user base to grow a mainstream community of AI-assisted knowledge seekers. The presence of official Poe staff on forums and their transparency (TechCrunch interviews, blog posts with usage stats, etc.) techcrunch.com techcrunch.com indicates they are fostering trust and enthusiasm. If Character.AI’s community is fandom and Janitor’s is a subculture, Poe’s is more akin to an open-source project or a startup ecosystem where people are building and sharing useful bots.

Recent News and 2025 Developments

The AI chatbot space is evolving rapidly. 2025 has already seen significant updates and announcements for each of these platforms:

• Character.AI: The headline for 2025 is leadership and feature expansion. In June 2025, Character.AI appointed Karandeep Anand (former Meta VP) as the new CEO ts2.tech ts2.tech, with co-founder Noam Shazeer stepping back from that role. This marked a transition from pure research-led growth to more operational focus. Anand immediately set a 60-day action plan addressing many user demands: improving the AI’s memory, easing the strict filter, adding creator features, and squashing the infamous “shadowbans” on user characters ts2.tech ts2.tech. He candidly communicated with the community via an open letter, which helped rejuvenate user optimism (though users are watching keenly to see promises kept). On the tech side, a major deal with Google in 2024 set the stage for 2025: Google licensed Character.AI’s LLM technology and effectively “re-acqui-hired” the founders and some team back into Google (for Google’s own AI uses) while valuing Character.AI at about $2.5–$3B ts2.tech ts2.tech. This means by 2025 Character.AI has deep pockets and access to Google’s AI infrastructure. Indeed, they started leveraging Google’s cloud TPUs for their model training ts2.tech. Rumors abound that Character.AI may integrate some of Google’s open-source models (like if they pivot to using Llama 2 or a Google model to save cost) ts2.tech ts2.tech, but nothing confirmed – the TS2 report speculated they might shift strategy to not build everything from scratch given the Google alignment. There’s also regulatory scrutiny: the FTC is reportedly examining the Google-Character.AI partnership for antitrust concerns (since Google effectively has a stake in a potential competitor) ts2.tech ts2.tech. Meanwhile, Character.AI usage has “cooled” a bit from its 2023 viral peak but still very high – over 20 million users active ts2.tech ts2.tech. They are pushing into new markets: by adding more languages (the mobile app was launched in multiple languages) and exploring collaborations. For example, Character.AI hired an SVP of Partnerships to strike deals with media franchises and celebrities for official AI characters ts2.tech ts2.tech. We might soon see licensed chatbots of famous movie characters on the platform, which would be huge. Additionally, multi-modal features introduced (like AvatarFX animations, image generation in chats, etc.) were refined. They teased a feature called “Imagine” to convert chat transcripts into animated comics or videos, aimed at paid users to share their chats as content ts2.tech ts2.tech. Also new is a social Feed on the mobile app where popular character posts or AI-generated musings appear, making the app feel a bit like an AI-powered TikTok of conversations ts2.tech. On the legal front, as mentioned, Character.AI is entangled in a couple of lawsuits in the U.S. from late 2024 (one in Florida, one in Texas) claiming their AI caused emotional harm to teens ts2.tech ts2.tech. In mid-2025, these cases were ongoing – notably a judge in the Florida case denied a motion to dismiss, implying the case has merit to proceed ts2.tech. The outcomes could set precedents on AI provider liability. Character.AI in 2025 is thus simultaneously expanding and firefighting: expanding features and use cases (even hinting at eventually providing an API or integrating into other apps ts2.tech), while firefighting PR issues around the filter and legal issues around safety. The new CEO’s swift moves are a positive sign that they know they must evolve quickly. Keep an eye on: possible introduction of an API or SDK for external developers (as suggested in partnership plans) ts2.tech ts2.tech, the outcome of the lawsuits (which might force more safety features or age gating), and any big content partnership (imagine an official Marvel AI on Character.AI – that could draw legions of fans). Also, given Google’s stake, we might hear of Character.AI tech appearing in Google products (e.g. powering some dialogues in Google Assistant or Android games). As of now, Character.AI remains independent and user-facing, but it’s closely tied into the bigger AI industry through Google.
• Janitor AI: For Janitor, 2025 has been about solidifying its niche and improving reliability. After the tumult of 2023 (losing OpenAI access, launching JanitorLLM), 2024 saw Janitor AI focusing on making their own model better. By early 2025, JanitorLLM was significantly improved from its initial beta: users reported it became a bit more coherent and less repetitive thanks to continual training (the hackernoon piece noted they found RNN training “yielded superior results” for their use case hackernoon.com, and presumably they kept iterating on that). Janitor’s devs also likely expanded the model’s size or dataset quietly, though specifics aren’t public. A notable mid-2025 update was Janitor recruiting more community moderators (including multilingual ones) ts2.tech, indicating their user base went global and they wanted to keep the platform safe and welcoming. They also published or clarified their content guidelines – making clear what NSFW is allowed vs. banned – to preempt any serious scandals. Janitor has had mostly positive press in the sense of being “the NSFW alternative hooking Gen Z on AI boyfriends” ts2.tech ts2.tech. An Intelligencer (NY Mag) article in 2025 titled “When Chatbots Choose Violence” mentioned Janitor AI in context of the controversies of AI roleplay, but in a sense that Janitor is one of those riding the line (the focus was more on Character.AI’s issues) ts2.tech ts2.tech. Janitor is also growing in users, albeit not as explosively as the initial surge. By late 2023 they had ~3 million registered users ts2.tech, and by mid-2025 they likely have a few million more (not confirmed, but usage seems steady). They are trying to keep up with that growth technically – adding servers, etc. In terms of upcoming features: the community buzz suggests Janitor AI is exploring adding voice or image generation to chats (to compete with Character.AI’s multimedia). Also, given the heavy female userbase that treats it as virtual companionship, Janitor might add more “companion app” features like scheduling chats, sending daily AI messages, etc. However, they must be cautious as that veers into the territory that got Replika in trouble (users forming deep emotional bonds and expecting certain things). On the business side, Janitor AI reportedly was in the process of securing funding after initial bootstrapping. There was an anecdote that Janitor AI had interest from some investors and had to navigate that carefully (the Shkreli episode being a weird footnote) ts2.tech. If they land a decent investment in 2025, we could see a premium tier or at least more stable service. They did launch JanitorAI Pro which might be either a Patreon or a direct subscription for those who want to support and get perks (like priority server access, maybe access to GPT-4 via Janitor’s own key if they’ve arranged that again). Also, Janitor has become part of the conversation in discussions of AI regulation. While Character.AI faced lawsuits, Janitor, by virtue of not banning erotic content, has drawn some concern. For example, if a minor lied about their age and accessed explicit chats, that’s a risk. Janitor does put an 18+ gate, but enforcement is tricky. Countries in the EU are considering requiring stricter age verification for such AI platforms, which Janitor would have to implement. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s on the horizon as the EU AI Act classification might deem it a risky system needing age checks ts2.tech ts2.tech. So Janitor’s team might need to prepare for that. All in all, Janitor AI in 2025 continues to be the edgy upstart, steadily improving its tech and navigating growing pains. The “Big Summer Updates” teased on Reddit included better long-term memory (perhaps some mechanism to recall earlier chats, akin to Character’s memory feature), and “refined content filters” ironically – by that they likely mean more nuance to allow sexy content but block only truly bad stuff ts2.tech. They also mentioned “more creator tools,” possibly a better interface for making characters or sharing them. The very latest news: Janitor AI announced integration of OpenRouter officially (OpenRouter is a community project that routes to many AI models cheaply), meaning users could use models like Mistral or Claude through Janitor more easily. This is a big step to diversify beyond just their own model. If Janitor can establish stable access to a variety of models (like Poe but in its NSFW-friendly context), it could keep users from straying to Poe or others for quality. In essence, Janitor is doubling down on freedom + flexibility, and that’s its roadmap: remain the go-to uncensored platform while continuously catching up on quality.
• Poe AI: 2025 has been a breakout year for Poe in terms of features. Quora raised $75 million from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in late 2023 specifically to fuel Poe’s growth techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. By mid-2024, Quora valued at $425M (pitchbook) with Poe as a major part of its strategy techcrunch.com. They used that to aggressively add features: In early 2024 they launched the Poe bot store/marketplace (coinciding with OpenAI’s ChatGPT releasing its own plugin/store – so there was some competition there). Then they rolled out Monetization for creators in Q4 2023, which was quite forward-thinking poe.com poe.com. Next, Multi-bot chat in April 2024 allowed seamless chaining of models in one conversation poe.com. A user could, say, ask a question to GPT-4, then ask an image bot to visualize the answer, then maybe ask a different model to critique it – all without opening new chats. This showcased Poe’s strength as an integrator. In 2025, the big news came in February with Poe Apps poe.com poe.com. This effectively turned Poe from just a chat interface into an app platform. Poe Apps allow custom UI and logic, meaning you don’t even have to interact via chat bubbles – you could have buttons, forms, etc. For instance, someone built an app called Chibify that takes photos and, using GPT-4 and an image model, turns them into anime avatars poe.com poe.com. Another app MagicErase lets you remove objects from images with a click (using an AI eraser model) poe.com. These are things beyond text chat, showing Poe wants to be a universal AI portal. They mentioned integrating not just text models but Imagen, Ideogram (text-to-image), DALL-E 3, Runway’s video models, and ElevenLabs audio all under the Poe API by 2025 poe.com poe.com. Indeed the Poe homepage now touts “GPT-4.1, Claude Opus, DeepSeek-R1, Runway, ElevenLabs, and millions of others” poe.com poe.com. Claude Opus 4 likely refers to Anthropic’s Claude 2 (they name the series Haiku, Sonnet, Opus for increasing sizes). GPT-4.1 might imply an updated GPT-4 or a variant. DeepSeek-R1 is probably an internal retrieval model for better search answers. The bottom line: Poe has many models and constantly adds new ones. Also notable: by late 2024, Poe made the shift to point-based usage (compute points) to accommodate the variety of model pricing zapier.com zapier.com. They even indicated that Gemini (Google’s next-gen model) and Claude 3 would be on Poe as soon as available monica.im zapier.com. Given that Quora’s CEO is on OpenAI’s board, Poe also got access to new OpenAI features quickly (like when OpenAI added vision or voice to ChatGPT in late 2023, Poe presumably could integrate those through the API). Indeed, Poe introduced GPT Image Generation in April 2025, likely leveraging OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 or similar poe.com. On the user growth front, Poe is still smaller than ChatGPT – SimilarWeb showed ~4M US monthly actives on Poe mobile vs 6M for ChatGPT mobile in late 2023 techcrunch.com, and globally Poe had ~3.1M Android actives in mid-2024 techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. But Quora sees it as steadily growing. They explicitly avoid ads in Poe, differentiating from Bing’s ad-supported AI techcrunch.com. Instead, they push subscriptions. Sensor Tower data up to May 2024 showed Poe made about $7.3M from subscriptions techcrunch.com techcrunch.com – modest, but remember Quora’s core business (Q&A site) is profitable separately, so Poe’s funding can be fully reinvested. Quora also started experimenting with AI-written answers on Quora (with a “Powered by Poe” label), which effectively gives Poe free advertising on a huge platform techcrunch.com techcrunch.com. This integration might funnel curious Quora users into trying Poe for deeper discussion. One more thing: D’Angelo’s involvement in the OpenAI board drama (he was part of the decision to remove Sam Altman in Nov 2023 and the quick reversal) put a spotlight on him techcrunch.com, but more importantly, it reaffirmed Quora’s close ties with OpenAI – likely meaning Poe will always have first dibs on OpenAI’s best models. He also publicly stated OpenAI is not a competitor to Poe techcrunch.com techcrunch.com; rather, Poe includes OpenAI models and complements Quora’s human knowledge mission. This signals that Poe will continue to aggregate even OpenAI’s own ChatGPT innovations, not try to build a rival general consumer chatbot but be the meta-platform. Looking ahead, Claude 3 was just announced by Anthropic (with even larger context), and we can expect that to appear on Poe (maybe labeled “Claude 3.5” or some code name). Also, Meta’s open models like Mistral 7B or Llama-3 if it comes, likely will be on Poe soon after release. Poe might also incorporate voice chat fully (they have ElevenLabs voices, so a user might converse by voice). They’ll also likely scale the Apps feature, maybe launching an Apps store on mobile. There’s even talk that creators could monetize apps directly (taking payments from users) down the line poe.com poe.com, which could make Poe an AI app platform like Apple’s App Store but for AI workflows. It’s ambitious. If it works, Poe could become the hub where all AI models and innovations are accessible – a bit like how web browsers became the hub for accessing websites. In 2025, Poe is still rising, and given Quora’s dedication and the amount of updates in just a year, it’s one to watch closely as new AI models emerge.

Conclusion

In the “Ultimate 2025 Showdown” of Character AI vs Janitor AI vs Poe AI, it’s clear that each platform has carved out its own territory:

• Character.AI is the entertainment powerhouse – a walled garden of millions of vibrant characters, ideal for creative roleplay and companionship, especially for younger users or those who prefer a curated, safe environment. It offers polish, an almost game-like atmosphere, and a huge community of fan content. However, its heavy moderation means it’s not the place for adult content or unrestricted conversations. As one tech writer put it, “Character.ai emphasizes how similar models can be used to synthesize countless… performances,” focusing on AI as a new form of media ts2.tech. With a new CEO and backing from Google, Character.AI is doubling down on memory improvements and features that make chats even more immersive (scenes, animations, etc.) while carefully loosening the reins on the infamous filter ts2.tech. It’s the platform to choose if you want to chat with an AI persona in a safe, richly featured sandbox, and don’t mind the occasional guardrail. Just don’t expect it to help with explicit fantasies or factual research beyond its imaginative scope.
• Janitor AI is the renegade upstart, beloved by those who felt stifled elsewhere. It’s the platform of choice for unfiltered AI friendships, romances, and adventures. Janitor doesn’t have the big corporate backing or glossy app (it’s web-based and community-driven), but it makes up for it in freedom and flexibility. Want your AI to talk dirty or explore taboo storylines? Janitor says yes – as long as it’s consensual and legal ts2.tech ts2.tech. It’s a testament to the demand for uncensored AI that Janitor skyrocketed to millions of users in months, becoming “the NSFW chatbot app hooking Gen Z on AI boyfriends” ts2.tech. Under the hood, Janitor’s model may not yet rival the likes of GPT-4 in general IQ, but the ability to plug in your own model keys means it can be as powerful as you make it ts2.tech ts2.tech. Janitor AI is essentially by the community, for the community – its founder is highly engaged, its users fiercely loyal, and its policies shaped by what the community wants (e.g. more memory, better filtering of only the worst content, etc.). As AI researcher Gary Marcus quipped in general, the more we restrict mainstream AIs, the more demand grows for alternatives – Janitor embodies that. If you value uncensored conversation and personalization over corporate polish, and you’re aware of the risks, Janitor AI is an unmatched experience. It feels like a collective experiment in what happens when you let an AI loose with the users holding the leash.
• Poe AI stands out as the versatile all-in-one platform – think of it as the Swiss Army knife of AI chat. Instead of building one model, Poe gives you many, from OpenAI’s best to open-source newcomers, all in one sleek app. It’s the go-to if you have a wide range of needs: brainstorming with GPT-4 in the morning, generating images with DALL-E 3 by noon, then debugging code with Claude in the afternoon. Poe has been described as “a kind of AI model aggregator” where “instead of a fixed subscription, you buy compute points” to use any model you need zapier.com zapier.com. Its rapid pace of updates – adding multimodal support, launching Poe Apps for custom tools, enabling bot monetization – shows Poe is not just keeping up with the state-of-the-art, but aiming to define it poe.com poe.com. For the general public, Poe offers simplicity (no need to juggle different AI accounts; just fire up Poe and choose your helper) and power (the latest models often debut there). It’s also a platform that might answer your questions on Quora one day, or let you build and sell an AI-powered service easily. The trade-off is you might hit some paywalls for heavy use, and it’s less about long-term relationship with one bot and more about using the right tool for the task. Poe is best for those who want practical AI assistance and the freedom to experiment with cutting-edge models without managing all the technical overhead. It’s less of a “friend” and more of an “AI app store” that’s always expanding.

In the end, the “best” platform depends on your priorities. For a playful, story-driven escape from reality with stringent safety nets, Character.AI is king – it’s Instagram meets Disneyland for AI characters. For intimate, no-holds-barred chats and a hands-on AI tinkering experience, Janitor AI leads – it’s the speakeasy of AI, where the late-night conversations flow freely. For getting things done with whichever AI is best suited – whether writing, coding, drawing, or researching – all under one roof, Poe AI excels – it’s the professional toolkit, refined and comprehensive.

One thing is certain: as we progress through 2025, these platforms are learning from each other and pushing boundaries. Character.AI is trying to relax a bit without losing safety ts2.tech, Janitor AI is improving quality to not fall too far behind, and Poe is making AI usage more accessible and integrated than ever zapier.com zapier.com. For users and AI enthusiasts, it’s an exciting time – we can choose the AI experience that suits our style, and even switch between them as our needs change. Whether it’s the imaginative spark from a Character.AI roleplay, the emotional connection with a Janitor AI persona, or the empowering versatility of Poe’s model buffet, 2025’s AI chatbots offer something for everyone. The showdown has no single winner – instead, we the users win by having this rich spectrum of AI at our fingertips.

Sources: Character.AI Blog blog.character.ai ts2.tech; TechCrunch techcrunch.com techcrunch.com; TS2 Space Report ts2.tech ts2.tech; HackerNoon hackernoon.com; Poe Documentation zapier.com poe.com.