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AI · alternatives · 2026

IB

24 alternatives to I built an app that lets you create and chat with 3D AI characters

Hello everyone! I'm excited to announce the launch of Astrocyte, a web app that allows you to create and interact with 3D AI characters. Whether it's video game heroes, anime characters, political figures, or even that obscure NPC from your favorite RPG, you can bring them to life and have a chat with them on Astrocyte! Many users have already begun crafting their own characters on Astrocyte, and the conversations have been incredibly entertaining. I would be thrilled if you could give it a try and share your honest feedback. Thank you!

Astrocyte is a web app where users create and chat with 3D AI characters. The platform lets people bring to life characters from video games, anime, politics, and other sources, then have conversations with them. It's… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I built an app that lets you create and chat with 3D AI characters launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1
    Astrocyte▲105

    Create, chat & interact with 3D AI characters

    2023 · its alternatives →

  2. 2

    Building the next generation of conversational AI

    2023 · character.ai · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    Hey HN Community! We're excited to introduce Spine, a tool we've been developing for the past month that aims to streamline the process of building and sharing AI-driven natural language interfaces like ChatGPT for various data formats. With Spine, you can: * Upload numerous data types such as websites, PDFs, docs, PowerPoints, CSVs, audio files, YouTube videos, and more * Navigate lots of data and get in-depth referenced results with our hybrid search * Built-in Feedback: Craft accurate, personalized & adaptive experiences -- we will update the search models and eventually your LLM with the…

    Nov 2025 · getspine.ai · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Hey HN! Introducing Trickle Magic Canvas: the world’s first Agentic Canvas, where you can visually co-create apps and websites with AI, from idea to production. Why is a canvas better? Most AI tools today rely on linear chats or text prompts. We believe that limits creativity and clarity. Canvas changes the game. 1. Every version & page at a glance. Each page and sub-page lives on a timeline. You can quickly browse, edit, and preview progress like a living, visual document — no more digging through chat logs or scattered states. 2. The canvas is the context. Unlike linear chats, you can…

    2025 · trickle.so · its alternatives →

  5. 5
    EmemeAI▲185

    Create & Export AI characters to apps and games

    2025 · video2motion.org · its alternatives →

  6. 6IB

    Hi HN, I built this out of frustration of the evergrowing list of AI models and features to try and to fit my workflow. The visual approach clicks for me so i went with it, it provides more freedom and control of the outcome, because predictable results and increased productivity is what I’m after when using conversational AI. The app is packed with features, my most used are prompt library, voice input and text search, narration is useful too. The app is local-first and works right in the browser, no sign up needed and it's absolutely free to try. BYOAK – bring your own API Keys. Let me…

    2024 · grafychat.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7

    Hi HN community! We want to share AI-town, a deployable starter kit for building and customizing your own version of AI simulation - a virtual town where AI characters live, chat and socialize. Inspired by great work from the Stanford Generative Agent paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.03442). A few features: - Includes a convex.dev backed server-side game engine that handles global state - Multiplayer ready. Deployment ready - 100% Typescript - Easily customizable. You can fork it, change character memories, add new sprites/tiles and you have a custom AI simulation…

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    OP here. This comment contains SPOILERS so try the dystopia simulator first before reading further! I built "WeChatGPT+" in December on top of GPT-3. It was pretty surreal when OpenAI released an actual product named "ChatGPT Plus" a few months after that. Then the Microsoft partnership was announced, Bing AI was released, and marketing materials were leaked indicating that Bing AI would start including advertisements within the chat responses. Reality imitates fiction, I guess. Today - literally a few hours ago - OpenAI announced public ChatGPT API with 10% the cost of GPT-3. I immediately…

    2023 · future.attejuvonen.fi · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    A local folder system based AI canvas app. AI first obsidian + Notion + Miro.

    Jun 2026 · slashspace.ai · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Hi HN, I'm Dom, a solo founder. I built Second Brain to solve a common issue I had with AI chats: the knowledge disappears. There’s no structure, no memory, and no way to reuse or build on them. So I built a tool that combines AI chat with a visual, interconnected knowledge system. Key features: - Save AI responses into editable docs (Notion-style Pages). - AI Visual board with multiple content & chat nodes (like Miro meets ChatGPT). - Add and chat with YouTubes, TikToks, Audio, PDFs, GitHub repos, Looms, websites, etc. - Organize using Projects and Smart Tags — then chat with full contexts.…

    2025 · second-brain-lac-ten.vercel.app · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    1. In the US, about 1/5 children are hospitalized each year that don’t have a caregiver. Caregiver such as play therapists and parents’ stress can also affect children's emotions. 2. Not everyone is good at making friends and not everyone has a BFF to talk to. Imagine you're having a hard time in life or at work, and you can't tell your parents or friends. So, we built an open-source project Starmoon and are using affordable hardware components to bring AI characters to real-word objects like toys and plushies to help people emotional growth. We believe this is a complement tool and it…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12
    Talkie AI▲284

    The most immersive experience with all your dream characters

    2024 · talkie-ai.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    Enjoy private or group chat with various AI based on ChatGPT

    2023 · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    Create, chat & hang out with your AI characters

    2024 · butterflies.ai · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Hey HN! I’m Zach one of the co-founders of Adam (https://www.adamcad.com). We're building AI-powered tools for CAD and 3D modeling [1]. We’ve recently been exploring a new way to bring GPT-style image editing directly into 3D model generation and are excited to showcase this in our web-app today. We’re calling it creative mode and are intrigued by the fun use cases this could create by making 3D generation more conversational! For example you can put a prompt in such as “an elephant” then follow it up by “have it ride a skateboard” and it preserves the context, identity and…

    2025 · adamcad.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    Voiced AI characters - make AI art and adventure together

    2023 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hey everyone, I've been hacking on this idea with a friend as we've been using chatgpt and other AI tools in our day to day work and find ourselves copy/pasting to each other frequently. We often share chatgpt links with each other, but it's been frustrating that they are read-only and we can't pickup the conversation or both talk to an LLM with shared context. We built a shared chatroom to explore what it'd be like to talk with multiple LLMs and humans in the same chat, and so far it feels pretty cool, but we're curious if anyone else would find it useful as well. Right now you can: -…

    2025 · chord.chat · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    Free zodiac & horoscope AI chat generator

    2024 · zodiac-chat.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Chatroulette/Omegle reimagined, now entirely AI characters!

    2023 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Chat with historical figures and learn from AI teachers

    2023 · its alternatives →

  21. 21
    Beni AI▲78

    Hi HN, I built Beni (https://thebeni.ai ), a web app for real-time video calls with an AI companion. The idea started as a pretty simple question: text chatbots are everywhere, but they rarely feel present. I wanted something closer to a call, where the character actually reacts in real time (voice, timing, expressions), not just “type, wait, reply”. Beni is basically: A Live2D avatar that animates during the call (expressions + motion driven by the conversation) Real-time voice conversation (streaming response, not “wait 10 seconds then speak”) Long-term memory so the character…

    Feb 2026 · thebeni.ai · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    I made this experimental art project/game that's an LLM chat assistant, but where you're the AI. I wanted people to get a visceral sense of what it's like to answer the kinds of things that people prompt their chatbots day in and day out. If you're interested, I wrote up some more info on how I made it, including how the "user" prompts are generated with an eye for realism: https://bethechatbot.com/about Hope you enjoy it! I'd love to hear people's takeaways.

    Jul 2026 · bethechatbot.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23
    Auvylo▲65

    Turn astrology and Four Pillars into AI personas you talk to

    May 2026 · auvylo.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Chat, learn and play with AI-powered characters

    2023 · its alternatives →

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