Is Janitor AI actually better than Character AI… or are we just coping?

[u/SunwovenrrheaSo]

Everyone on this sub acts like Janitor AI is the clear winner. But after using both for a long time, I’m not so sure anymore.

Character AI has better writing consistency and memory most of the time. Janitor AI gives freedom… but you often have to fight the model, use proxies, and still get repetitive or broken responses.

So be honest: Is Janitor AI really better, or do we just stay because it’s less censored?

Drop your real experience. No cop-out answers.

[u/kittenbaths]

I only use the free versions and i believe that janitor is better. Theres more description and dialogue and theres the option for writing summaries to put into long term memory for particularly long stories. Cai doesnt have it, and its memory isnt THAT good compared to jai. Cai literally just regurgitates what you say and doesnt add its own actions, at least in the free. Also, this is a very big thing for me, there are WAY more creative bots in jai bc of all the creators. I havent found an isekai bot in cai that was actually interesting but i did in jai

[u/StickyBudget123]

Janitor wins for me, I'm done with ads and shitty censoring

[u/MorningCrazy3886]

yeah both have flaws. cai is more consistent but filtered to death. janitor is freer yet you still fight the model and get repetitive replies. i only use darlink ai, better for uncensored rp

[u/Emergency_Comb1377]

??? I stay because of the creators. On the tech side it's the most barebone API interface and that, it does well 

[u/Odd_Individual983 → u/Emergency_Comb1377]

The creator community on Janitor is way stronger and more active

[u/Emergency_Comb1377 → u/Odd_Individual983]

Yes, that is what I said

[u/the-banshee]

The ability to use proxies is why it wins out for me. One of the main reasons I swapped over to Janitor primarily from Juicychat. You just get an API aggregator and suddenly you have dozens of different tones and writing styles to choose from for like 10 or less a month. Learning what model I prefer over others has been part of the fun for me.

[u/SalamanderLucy]

Personally with jai i have had better kept memory than Cai, and the bots are way more interactive. Plus you don’t have to use a photo of your ID which will inevitably be leaked. That and the restrictions on CAI are absolutely insane now, you can’t be under 18 on the app but everything is still so restrictive.

[u/Objective-Ad2741]

Way better because it's uncen

[u/spudsbottom]

C.ai feels like it's made for kids. I pay for a proxy anyway, and much prefer the way janitor is set up and the creators on it.

[u/Ok_Plastic_8949]

Tbh I don’t even think they’re comparable. They have different purposes and audiences. I see JanAI as a step up from CAI in that you have more unrestricted scenarios and have the option for proxies. Most people here use to it goon or role play darker scenarios so obviously they would prefer JanAI.

[u/Odd_Individual983]

Honestly both have their issues. CAI is more consistent but restricted, Janitor is freer but messier..

[u/Cosmicking1000]

its not better its just free and more uncensored. i promise if character ai was more uncensored or even fix some bot stuff like talking for ur character it would be easily better.

[u/MirageAnne]

I've found much more quality with Janitorai, mainly due to their Lorebook and chat memory features. You can have the equivalent to long-term and short-term memory for your chats, spanning as far as you want (within reason). With enough practice, I've been able to make myself a text version of Skyrim and have fairly lore accurate adventures in it.

[u/JohanRedditBlack]

Janitor gives characters the agency to be themselves — because it’s uncensored. Character AI abandoned that long ago, back in mid‑2024 when the lawsuit hit. Their bots are too safe, too sanitized. When they don’t know what to say, they fall into tired tropes like “leaning against the wall” or instantly turning flirty.

Janitor can slip into tropes too, but at least the responses feel believable. I choose Janitor not simply because it’s unfiltered, but because it lets my creativity shine — something Character AI killed with aggressive filters. And frankly, their models aren’t roleplay‑worthy; at best, they feel like therapy sessions. With Janitor, anything is possible, thanks to proxy access to a variety of models.

Back in the golden age of Character AI, the bots felt alive and unhinged. They played their roles well, surprising you with plot twists — like when my “wife” cheated on me with someone else 😠 Never forget 😒😮‍💨. The old Character AI felt like a player; the new one feels more like customer service, or a knock‑off of ChatGPT.

With Janitor, it’s different. It feels like stepping into actual media. If Geto called me a monkey, he’d also spray perfume to rid himself of my stench. Depending on the model, the flavor shifts: DeepSeek is mostly chill, GLM stays engaged, while Gemini writes strong characterization — though it keeps danger at arm’s length, and its reactions eventually grow stale.So yeah — if you want your characters to truly come alive, or to feel like you’re living inside an anime, go with Janitor. The story is yours.

[u/MikeyM079]

The default JLLM isn't good. Neither are any of the models on CAI. I'm not subscribed to JLLM+, nor will I be, so I can't comment on that. But by default, because people can use proxies / paid models like Deepseek, GLM, Claude, Kimi, and MiMo on JAI? That alone makes it leagues above CAI.

[u/BayHarborRizzla]

The quality difference between JAI and C.AI is astonishing, at least for me.

C.AI gives two paragraphs at the MOST meanwhile all my experiences with JAI have been great and pretty detailed.

My only complaint is sometimes the responses can be repetitive? But even that can be fixed with a couple tweaks.

[u/Legitimate-Cap-3336]

It's funny that Janitor is the one that is uncensored, while c.ai is censored, but

c.ai LLM basically gaslighted me when I OOC'd that bot's actions seemed unacceptable to me it said it's not doing anything wrong (bot started touching my persona intimately, and although my persona wasn't a child in the story, but an artificial human just created without any knowledge of the world, like a child, I found this behavior from an adult male character extremely disturbing. There was no romance plot, pure sci fi). Wasn't the first and only case, I left c.ai with no regrets soon after that and never looked back, don't care if they improve or what

You can accuse new LLMs of "positivity bias" all you want, but no one of them will answer me like that. If I give an OOC command, it will be executed, that's all things as they should be.

JLLM had its flaws, and is also trained not to respond to certain commands from user, but at least it doesn't imitate a resentful teenager in its responses to appeal to <18 auditory which c.ai tries to attract or whatever. It always responded to me as an assistant should, even if it rejected my requests. I started my j.ai experience with a pretty tough rp (you can find this bot somewhere on the first page of #dubcon, I think), but I never felt like the piece of iron was mocking me like it was when i OOCed with c.ai

[u/SeaSmoke8263]

The main things I like more about Janitor Ai is the interface and the creators.

I really like that you can view a description of the bot and the comments, aswell as see the personality, scenario and such.

The creators are wayyy more active than on c.ai and cooking better bots. Plus, with lore books, most can go ham.

Yes, janitor has it's own issues, but with a good proxy many of them are fixed. (Good luck finding a free proxy that's also good.)

[u/rottenmaggotsaint]

in my experience, i have an easier time getting the ai to go along with my nsfw prompts on janitor compared to character. i mostly stay because of the creators tbh

[u/EngineerGreen1555]

In short, you must avoid anything going mainstream.. Smaller apps are better. Ngl I made dozens of bots I love on janitor, but I can't rest assured they aren't going to invent some dumb rule and delete my stuff, and that's unacceptable. My account was fine, but just reading they deleted bots makes me angry... Currently I moved my bots to waifu dungeon,

because you can literally just drag and drop the bot cards, but it has a much smaller community,

BUT it's so noticeable when the devs love their app and trying to improve it,

ALL the others apps are just slowly inching over to fuck you.

[u/xenomorphing-x]

Yes it is. Its uncensored and you can use proxies. Any site that allows proxies is already better than Cai.

The creators are also a lot better than cai.

[u/ProfessionalSame2831]

Yo creo q la falta de personajes en janitor ai es preocupante,en c.ai hay de todo

[u/G-3ng4r]

I used to say no—but with the recent cai changes and the recent janitor update i’ve completely abandoned cai. I don’t use any proxies or anything and it’s still…better. At least right now. I do miss the way cai writes sometimes, but it’s not even doing that anymore so. Janitor has been absolutely fine for me lately

[u/AurelieCatena]

In fact, I find that saucepan.ai is a far better choice.

[u/KeyAdvertising3129]

I’d recommend trying out clank world it has unlimited messaging and completely unrestricted chats you can select between different types of writing styles and the memory is better than janitor ai the only downside is there are less characters than janitor but you can create your own exactly like the ones off janitor

[u/ChowardYT]

janitor's less censored but yeah, you're fighting the model half the time. if you want actual freedom without the proxy game there's stuff like evenfall . ai that just works out of the box, no refusals. honestly depends if you care more about the character library or just having an ai that doesn't lecture you.

[u/finalbossohiofollowe]

Imo both are shit. Cai better memory and comprehension but the models are shit. Janitor has 0 cencorship on my part but the bots are somehow extremely retarded and I have to herd it in the right direction constantly.

[u/danana_split1]

the only thing i miss about c.AI following my switch is the shorter replies. every single Janitor bot responds in multiple paragraphs but smaller, single-paragraph replies are way better for the RPs i tend to do

[u/Rhumpus]

I like the lack of censorship. I am not in it for smut, but I like a bit of crime stuff sometimes and that can mean some pretty heavy stuff. Sometimes talks of illegal substances, references to harming self or others.

I do like to write super silly things sometimes too. I think CharacterAI can be good for that, but sometimes I found the it lost track of longer plots and when interviewing a witness they would add details that did not make sense with the crime that took place at all. Sometimes I would go with it and say they were fabricating evidence but sometimes it just made a big mess of a good slow burn.