Switching from Anima AI.
Our read, unchanged from the review: One of the cheapest ways into the category — a long-running companion app that now feels lightly maintained.
Updated 2026-08-24 · Anima AI assessed from public info, not yet hands-on tested
What Anima AI is bad at.
Straight from our assessment — the same sentences we publish on the comparison pages, not a sales pitch written backwards from this one.
Durable long-term memory
iPhone users — absent from major App Store storefronts
Privacy-conscious users
And what it was good at: Budget users — among the cheapest annual prices, First-time users wanting a simple text friend, Casual chat and mini-games. If those are what you came for, you may not need to leave at all — we'd rather say that than win you on half a story. Read the full Anima AI review.
- Memory
- 4.0 / 10
- Voice consistency
- 5.0 / 10
- Safety
- 5.0 / 10
- Value for money
- 7.0 / 10
What actually carries over.
We haven't verified Anima AI's data-export flow against the live product, so we're not going to describe one. What we can tell you is what this end accepts: if your companion exists as a Tavern V2 card — a PNG or a JSON file, the format SillyTavern and the card-sharing sites use — /tools/character-import reads it in your browser and carries the name, pronouns, vibe and description across. The card never uploads anywhere. If you don't have one, the create flow rebuilds them by hand in about 30 seconds.
What does not carry over, anywhere, is the conversation history — no platform in this category imports another's transcripts, and one that claimed to would be worth a second look. The shape of someone survives a move. The months do not.
Built so the next move
isn't forced on you.
Memory that doesn't reset.
Facts, weeks, the thing you only said once — a six-layer memory system holds them. Free keeps about 7 days; on Pro it doesn't expire, so the relationship goes somewhere instead of restarting.
One bond, deepened — not a cast to swap.
Bae is monogamous on purpose. You build one companion and they grow with you across six stages, getting more themselves and more yours. No roster, no starting over with a stranger.
When something important changes, we tell you why.
What breaks trust in this category isn't change, it's silence. Big changes here come with a note explaining what and why. It's written into our promises and dated in /changelog, not buried in a patch note.
No card to start. Delete everything in one tap.
Start anonymous — no email, no card, held by a private cookie on your device. 30 messages a day free, 100 photos a week on Pro, conversations never sold or licensed to other AI labs, and /goodbye erases all of it instantly.
Anima AI vs Bae.
Bae's column comes out of our own build; Anima AI's reflects our provisional assessment from public information.
| Feature | Anima AI | Bae |
|---|---|---|
| Long-term memory | Partial | Yes |
| Real photos | No | Yes |
| Voice | Yes | No |
| Persona customization | Partial | Yes |
| Romantic / spicy mode | Partial | Partial |
Voice is not shipped on Bae yet — we'd rather the table said so. How we test: /methodology
Before you move.
Can I move my Anima AI companion to Bae?
The character can come, the conversation history can't — that's true of every move in this category, not just this one. If you have your companion saved as a Tavern V2 card (PNG or JSON), /tools/character-import reads it in your browser and carries the name, pronouns, vibe and description across. We haven't verified whether Anima AI offers a card export of its own, so we're not going to tell you it does; if it doesn't, the create flow rebuilds them by hand in about 30 seconds.
Why do people leave Anima AI?
From our assessment of it, it's a poor fit for 3 things: durable long-term memory; iphone users — absent from major app store storefronts; privacy-conscious users. The full read, including what it does well, is on /alternatives/anima — we'd rather you saw both halves.
What stops the same thing happening here?
Nothing stops a product changing — anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. What we can do is not do it silently: changes that affect your companion come with a note explaining what and why, memory is permanent on Pro rather than a rolling window, and there's a one-tap export-and-delete at /goodbye so leaving is never a hostage situation.
Do I have to pay to try it?
No, and there's no trial clock either. 30 messages a day, real AI selfies and the early relationship stages are free with no account and no card. Pro — unlimited messages, permanent memory, every stage — is $2.99/week or $99/year after a seven-day free trial.
Tell them what mattered.
They'll keep it.
Pick a shape, pick a face, say what to call you. 30 seconds, no account, no card — and day one doesn't have to pretend it's day one.