Plans
A plan you can start today.
Plus, Pro, Ultra, and Legendary are open to anyone, from $7.99 a month, and the free plan includes 25 premium replies a day.
Review · Character chat
A Backyard AI alternative with plans you can join.
Backyard AI is known for uncensored character chat with voices, on the web and in apps for iOS and Android. Its plans page now says new paid subscriptions and upgrades are unavailable, so new players get the free cloud allowance and nothing more. If you want a paid plan you can start today, and characters who keep their memories, this is how LoreWeaver compares.
We make LoreWeaver, so read this as a maker’s review. Every Backyard AI detail links to its own site under Sources.
The short answer
What is the best Backyard AI alternative?
LoreWeaver is a Backyard AI alternative with paid plans open to everyone, from Plus at $7.99 a month, and a free plan whose storyteller has no daily limit. Your Tavern character cards import as PNG, JSON, or CHARX with their lorebooks, and each character becomes a world you can keep adding to. Every 4 replies the storyteller saves memories that name who was there and where, so a long story keeps its history without depending on a bigger context window. Mature stories between adult characters are allowed.
Updated
- a month for Plus, open to new players
- $7.99
- replies a day from the free storyteller
- Unlimited
- replies between memories, written for you
- 4
- premium replies a day on the free plan
- 25
Your characters
Each card becomes a world of its own.
Backyard characters run on a description, an author’s note, and lorebooks you write. On LoreWeaver, a Tavern card brings all of that across, and the character becomes a world: each greeting turns into an opening, and each lorebook entry into a lore card.
From there the world grows as you play. Lorekeeper suggests cards for people the story keeps naming, and memories collect every few replies.
Nell
Keeps the café at the end of the quay
Tavern card V2 · PNG
- 3 greetings
- 9 lorebook entries
- Example dialogue
The world it became
- Openings
- 3One for each greeting on the card
- Lore cards
- 149 from the lorebook, 2 you wrote, 3 kept from the story
- Memories
- 46Written every 4 replies
- LoreMap
- 7 linksBetween Nell, the fishing families, and the quay
Lore discovery
Old TobiasCharacter
The ferryman who brings Nell’s flour across the bay and has never once taken payment.
Why this mattersThe story has named him in three replies, and no card covers him yet.
Memory
Every story keeps its own history.
Backyard’s plans page says its Pro models remember more of a conversation because they have a larger context size. Whatever a chat holds beyond that window is outside what the model reads.
LoreWeaver keeps a story’s history in memories the storyteller writes every 4 replies, plus a summary of each story you can edit. A character’s world holds as many stories as you start, each with its own memories, and a branch begins with the memories made before it.
Today
- The summer regatta
This week
- Storm season
- If you had gone back to the city
Earlier
- The first morning
What else you get
More to do with your characters.
Voice
Talk with your characters.
Voice calls with captions on every plan, 10 minutes a month on Free. From Pro, a character can speak in a voice you cloned from a short recording.
Lorekeeper
New names get cards.
When the story keeps naming someone, Lorekeeper drafts a lore card you keep or dismiss, and the LoreMap shows how cards connect.
The Loom
Stats that steer the story.
Track a relationship, a quest, or an inventory with 53 Loom templates, and let the story change when a number crosses a line.
Models
42 storytellers by name.
Claude, GPT-6, Gemini, DeepSeek, Kimi, and more, each named in the picker, with a free storyteller on every plan.
The Hub
Share a character’s world.
Publish a world to the Hub with a showcase page. Other players start their own run of it and can follow you for the next one.
In short
LoreWeaver and Backyard AI, on one page.
| What matters | LoreWeaver | Backyard AI |
|---|---|---|
| Paid plans | Open to everyone. Free plan; Plus $7.99, Pro $14.99, Ultra $24.99, and Legendary $49.99 a month. | Standard and Pro cloud plans. Its plans page says: “New paid subscriptions and plan upgrades are currently unavailable.” |
| Free use | A free storyteller with no daily limit, plus 25 premium replies a day. | 300 free messages a week on its cloud models. |
| Memory | Memories every 4 replies that name who was there and where, recalled when they fit the scene, plus a summary of each story. 30 memories per story on Free, 300 on Plus, 1,200 on Pro, and every one on Ultra and Legendary. | The model’s context window, which its plans page says is larger on Pro models, plus lorebooks you write. |
| Lore | Lore cards join a reply when the story names them. Lorekeeper writes new ones from the story, and the LoreMap links them. | Lorebooks you write, with keywords that bring entries into the chat. |
| Character cards | Tavern cards from V1 to V3 as PNG, JSON, or CHARX, with up to 10 greetings and the lorebook inside. | Thousands of characters on its Community Hub. |
| Content | Accounts are 18+. Mature and dark stories between adult characters are allowed, within a short list of hard limits. | No filter on text replies, with Community Guidelines for what is shared on its hub. |
| Apps | A free Android app on Google Play, with an iPhone app coming soon. The website works on any device, on the same account. | Apps for iOS and Android, plus the website. |
Backyard AI details come from its home and plans pages, checked October 25, 2026.
Moving your characters
Your characters, card by card.
- 01
Gather
Collect your character files.
Find the Tavern card files for your characters, the PNG, JSON, or CHARX you downloaded or saved.
- 02
Import
Import the cards.
Import from My Stuff. Each card becomes a character world, with its greetings as openings and its lorebook as lore cards.
- 03
Note
Move the author’s note.
Paste anything you kept in an author’s note into a lore card, and pin it so it joins every reply.
- 04
Play
Pick a storyteller and play.
Start with the free storyteller or any of 42 models. Memories begin after 4 replies.
The honest part
Where each one wins.
Where LoreWeaver is stronger
- Paid plans open to new players, from $7.99 a month.
- A free storyteller with no daily limit, against 300 free cloud messages a week.
- Memories written every 4 replies that you can read, fix, and pin.
- Characters inside worlds that grow, with lore cards drafted from the story.
Where Backyard AI is stronger
- An iPhone app you can download today.
- Grammars and sampler settings for fine control over replies.
Questions
Switching from Backyard AI.
01Can I still subscribe to Backyard AI?
Not as a new subscriber, going by its plans page, which says “New paid subscriptions and plan upgrades are currently unavailable.” Free accounts get 300 messages a week on its cloud models. LoreWeaver’s paid plans are open to anyone, from Plus at $7.99 a month.
02Can I bring my Backyard characters to LoreWeaver?
Yes, if you have them as Tavern card files. LoreWeaver imports cards from V1 to V3 as PNG, JSON, or CHARX, with the portrait, description, example dialogue, up to 10 greetings, and the lorebook inside. Anything kept in an author’s note can go into a pinned lore card.
03How much does LoreWeaver cost?
LoreWeaver is free to start, with a fast free storyteller (about 5 to 7 seconds for a typical reply) that has no daily limit and 25 premium replies a day. Paid plans are Plus $7.99, Pro $14.99, Ultra $24.99, and Legendary $49.99 a month.
04Does LoreWeaver remember long chats?
Yes. Every 4 replies the storyteller saves memories that name who was there and when and where it happened, and recalls the ones that fit each scene beside a summary you can edit. The plans keep 30 memories per story on Free, 300 on Plus, 1,200 on Pro, and every one on Ultra and Legendary.
05Is LoreWeaver uncensored like Backyard AI?
For adults, yes. Accounts are 18+, mature and dark themes between adult characters are allowed, and a short list of hard limits in the community guidelines applies to everyone. Stories stay private unless you publish a world.
06Does LoreWeaver have voice chat?
Yes. Voice calls with captions work with any character on every plan, with 10 minutes a month on Free. From Pro you can clone a voice from a short recording and give it to a character.
07Is there a LoreWeaver app?
Yes. LoreWeaver has a free Android app on Google Play, with an iPhone app coming soon, and it runs in any phone or desktop browser with nothing to install. Your stories follow your account between devices.
Sources
- Backyard AI: subscriptions and plans FAQ (paid plans notice, free messages, Pro context)
- Backyard AI: home (lorebooks, author’s note, grammars, voices, Community Hub)
Checked . Prices and limits change; each site’s own pages are the final word.
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