For Nomi users who mostly write, the alternative we make is Hemmingway Unlocked: adult roleplay and dark stories in text, where you decide who every character is, with the chats kept in your own browser. If what you love is a Nomi with a personality of its own, who calls you, sends selfies and remembers years of you, stay with a companion app. Kindroid and Replika are the same kind of thing as Nomi. Unlocked is not.
Nomi is built on an idea: your Nomi is a being who grows. It keeps its own sense of who it is, it can message you first, and it remembers. For many people that is the point. For others, the growing gets in the way of the story they came to write. This page is mostly for them.
We make Hemmingway Unlocked. What we say about the others comes from their own sites.
What Nomi is
Nomi's site calls it an AI companion with memory and a soul, for a friend, a partner, a mentor or a fantasy partner.
- Memory. Short, medium and long-term memory. Its wiki adds Backstory+, the notes you write, and an Identity Core: the Nomi's own developing sense of who it is, which the wiki says the Nomi manages and you cannot view or edit directly.
- Several Nomis. You can make more than one, each with its own personality, and put them together in a group chat.
- Voice and pictures. Voice messages, hands-free calls, selfies of what your Nomi is wearing and doing, and video. Its wiki says Nomis do not send nude photos.
- Proactive messages. A Nomi can message you first if you have been quiet for a while.
- What it allows. Its site says chats are unfiltered and uncensored, and its terms ban using it to threaten, harass or plan harm to others. Its wiki says Nomi is 18+, and so is every Nomi.
- Where it runs. A web app, apps for iPhone and Android, and a Companion API for developers. Free to start, with paid plans, per its site.
Why people look elsewhere
- You want to be the author. A Nomi is meant to grow on its own, and part of that growth sits in an Identity Core you cannot read. If you want a character who stays exactly as written, and a story that goes where you send it, a tool that only plays the part you give it fits better.
- You want a plot, not a relationship. Group chats help, but a companion app is built around people who know you, not a story with an end.
- You want your chats out of anyone's learning. Nomi's wiki says Nomis learn in aggregate from chats you rate with a thumbs up or down, with names and other identifying details removed. Some people want no learning from their chats at all.
- You want to own the model. Nomi's wiki says you cannot run Nomi on your own computer, and that it is unlikely any time soon.
The options side by side
| Option | Who shapes the character | Voice and pictures | Can you run it yourself? | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hemmingway Unlocked | You, in your first message | Neither. Text only | Yes: open weights, on a strong GPU set-up | No companion memory. Chats do not sync |
| Kindroid | You set name, personality, backstory, looks and voice | Voice, video calls, selfies | Not mentioned on its pages | A subscription after a short free preview |
| Replika | You shape your Rep | Calls and selfies | Not mentioned on its pages | Its home page does not set out its rules for adult chat |
| SillyTavern with a local model | You, in character cards and lore | Through extensions | Yes, that is the point | A strong graphics card and some set-up |
| Character sites | Other users, or you | Varies by site and plan | No | Many characters, none who knows you |
If you want another companion: Kindroid or Replika
Kindroid is the closest match. Its site says you choose your Kin's name, personality, backstory, appearance and voice. It describes voice messages, live video calls, selfies, group chats and a layered memory. Its moderation guidelines say adult roleplay is allowed, and its terms say users must be 18 or over. Kindroid alternatives has the detail.
Replika calls itself an AI friend to do life with: one Rep that remembers your people and plans, takes your calls and sends selfies, on iPhone and Android. Replika alternatives covers it.
If you want a companion nobody can change: SillyTavern
SillyTavern's docs call it a locally installed interface for power users, with no model of its own. You connect a program on your computer, such as KoboldCpp or Ollama, or a cloud API. It has character cards, World Info for lore, group chats, and extensions for images and voice.
With a local model, nothing you type leaves your machine and nobody can retrain your companion. You write the card, so the character is exactly who you say. The price is hardware and an afternoon of set-up. Open models for roleplay walks through it.
If you want many characters: character sites
SpicyChat's docs describe a library of user-made characters for adults, where every user must be 18 or over and every character an adult. Janitor AI's help pages describe a similar library. They suit variety, not one character who knows your week. Janitor AI alternatives compares them.
Where Hemmingway Unlocked fits
Hemmingway Unlocked is the adults-only side of Hemmingway, at wise.hemmingway.io. It asks you to confirm you are 18 or over, shows its rules, then you sign in.
It does not have a personality of its own to protect. You say who the characters are, it plays them, and it stays in the part you gave it.
- What it writes. Sex between adults, explicit and in full. Dark fiction: horror, war, crime, with the violence left in. Roleplay where you set the scene. Ordinary chat. It does not stop a scene to lecture.
- What it never writes. Anything sexual involving anyone under 18 (or an adult playing someone under 18), a real person, animals, family, or anyone who does not want it. No help hurting a real person, no stalking or harassing, no weapons or drugs, no help with self-harm. The full list is in our terms. Every answer has a Report button.
- Where chats live. In your browser, on your device, not on our servers. They are never used for training. Each message passes through our servers to be answered and is not kept. Chats do not sync between devices, and clearing your browser data deletes them.
- Cost. Free to try, no card. After that, memberships from $9 a month. The Unlocked page has the rest.
- The model. Open weights: an adapter on Hemmingway-1, a 27B model, published at Hugging Face under CC BY-NC 4.0. Run Hemmingway Unlocked locally covers the hardware, which is serious: about 54 GB for the weights alone at 16-bit.
- An API. OpenAI-compatible, at
https://wise.hemmingway.io/v1, for members. It works in SillyTavern. See Hemmingway Unlocked's API.
Open Hemmingway UnlockedTry Hemmingway
Where it does not fit
- You want your Nomi, not a story. Unlocked has no companion memory, no Identity Core and no proactive messages. It will not message you first, and it knows only what is in the chat you are in.
- You want to hear and see them. No voice, no calls, no selfies, no avatar. It makes no images of any kind. Kindroid and Replika both describe calls and selfies.
- You want ready-made characters. There is no library and no character builder. You write the character, or let the AI roleplay generator draft the opening. A character site suits browsing.
- You want an app from the app store. There is none. Unlocked runs in the browser, on a phone or a computer. Nomi, Kindroid and Replika have apps.
How to choose
- You want to write the story, in text, with chats kept on your device. Hemmingway Unlocked.
- You want another companion with a face and a voice. Kindroid or Replika.
- You want a companion that is yours alone. SillyTavern with a local model.
- You want many characters to try. A character site such as SpicyChat.
Common questions
Can I run Nomi on my own computer?
No. Nomi's wiki says it cannot run locally, because its thinking and its memory run on separate servers. If you want a model you can keep, Hemmingway Unlocked's has open weights, and SillyTavern with KoboldCpp or Ollama runs open models on your own machine.
Does Nomi learn from my chats?
Its wiki says Nomis learn in aggregate from chats rated thumbs up or down, with names and other identifying details removed, and that chat data is not used in other ways beyond answering you. Hemmingway Unlocked never trains on chats, and keeps them in your browser rather than on our servers.
Can I bring my Nomi to another app?
You can bring a description. Copy what you wrote in Backstory+, add the history the two of you share, and give it to the new app as the first message. Part of who your Nomi became lives in its Identity Core, which its wiki says you cannot view, so that part stays behind.
Is there a Nomi alternative with group chats?
Kindroid's site describes group chats, and so do SillyTavern's docs. In Hemmingway Unlocked there are no separate character slots, but you can describe a whole cast in your first message and say who it should play.