Why people look for a CrushOn alternative
The things people tend to want instead of a character chat website are a proper app on the phone, a chat that doesn't depend on a connection, and some certainty about where their messages go. Chats on a hosted service pass through its servers. Chats in Castmates don't leave your iPhone. We couldn't open crushon.ai from our location when writing this (19 October 2026), and we haven't used its current version, so we've kept what we say about it to a minimum. Check crushon.ai for how it works and what it costs today.
Castmates vs. CrushOn
| Castmates | CrushOn | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you use it | Native iPhone app | Website (no app from CrushOn found in the US App Store) |
| Where the AI runs | On your iPhone | On its servers, as a hosted website |
| Works offline | Yes, after the model download | Not as a website that needs a connection |
| Characters | A curated cast of 35, plus your own custom characters | User-made characters |
| Content rules | 18+, App Store rules apply | Check crushon.ai |
| Account | None | Check crushon.ai |
| Pricing | 30 free messages a day; Pro $6.99 a month | Check crushon.ai for current plans |
| Phone requirement | iPhone with 6 GB RAM or more, ~2 GB model download | Any device with a browser |
| Languages | English | Check crushon.ai |
Sources: our own app for the Castmates column. For CrushOn, only that it's a website for chatting with user-made characters, and that a search of the US App Store on 19 October 2026 found no app published by CrushOn. Everything else we've left to CrushOn's own site. If anything here is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we'll fix it.
The honest trade-offs
- App Store content rules. If explicit or no-limits chat is the reason you're looking, Castmates isn't it.
- A smaller cast. You get 35 written characters and can build your own, not a big catalogue made by other users.
- You need a recent iPhone. The model runs on the phone, which takes 6 GB of RAM or more and about 2 GB of free space. On an older phone, a website is the better choice.
- A phone-sized model. Replies come from a model small enough to fit on an iPhone, so it won't match the largest cloud models for long, detailed scenes or memory across weeks of chats.
- English only, iPhone only. No Android or web version.
What you get instead
Every reply is generated on your iPhone, so your messages aren't sent to a server, there's no account to make, and it works in airplane mode once the model is installed. The free plan gives you 30 messages a day with the full cast and one custom character. Pro lifts the daily limit and the character cap.