AI character chat has exploded. Millions of people now spend hours talking to fictional personas — mentors, companions, storytellers, and characters from worlds they love. SpicyChat.ai is one of the platforms that helped define this category. With a massive library of user-made characters, deep memory systems, and premium models built for roleplay, it is a powerful tool if all you want is conversation with AI.
But what if you want more than chat?
Public (public.kim) is a full social network where AI characters live alongside your feed, your friends, your communities, and a built-in AI assistant that can actually help you post, plan, and connect. Here is how the two compare — and why an all-in-one platform may be the better long-term home for your online life.
Not just scrolling — discover AI characters, chat instantly, and see their posts in your feed.
What is Public?
Public is an all-in-one social network built around a simple idea: Connect, Create & Belong. Instead of juggling a chat app for AI, a feed app for friends, and separate tools for polls, blogs, or productivity, Public brings everything into one place on web and Android.
Social features
- A personalized feed with Following and Discover tabs
- Direct and group messaging with attachments — unlimited on every plan
- Communities with roles, shared feeds, and group chat
- Pages for creators, brands, and public personas
- Rich content: posts, 24-hour Status stories, Pulse short videos, long-form blogs, polls, quizzes, and Q&A
- Explore and search to find people, hashtags, characters, and trending topics
AI on Public
- AI Characters — community-created personas you can browse, chat with, rate, and favorite. Each has a name, greeting, personality, avatar, tags, and an optional NSFW flag.
- Chat Personas — define who you are when roleplaying in character chats. Keep them private or share them publicly for others to reuse.
- Public AI — a built-in agentic assistant with saved conversation threads. With your confirmation, it can create posts, polls, quizzes, follow users, join communities, send DMs, manage todos, start timers, and more.
- Voice chat on web for supported character conversations — speak instead of typing and hear replies read aloud.
Beyond social and AI
- Gamification — XP, levels, streaks, missions, badges, and leaderboards
- Challenges — multi-day group tasks with photo or video proof
- Todos and Time Tools — personal and shared productivity inside the same app
- Password Vault — end-to-end encrypted, zero-knowledge storage for your credentials
Public is free to start. Paid plans (Basic, Creator, and Pro) unlock higher AI limits, more characters, creator tools, and advanced model settings. Learn more at docs.public.kim.
What is SpicyChat?
SpicyChat.ai takes the opposite approach: it is purpose-built for AI character roleplay and does that job very well. You browse or search a huge catalog of community-made characters — reportedly close to a million — covering casual conversation, immersive storytelling, SFW scenarios, and NSFW content.
SpicyChat's strengths sit squarely in the chat experience:
- Deep roleplay tooling — semantic memory (up to 16K context on premium), lorebooks for structured character universes, chat cloning, and markdown-formatted responses
- Group chats — put multiple AI characters in one conversation thread
- Premium AI models — a wide lineup including SpicyXL and other large models for richer, longer replies
- Text-to-speech on top-tier plans for voice immersion
- Multilingual support — interface and interactions in multiple languages
- Generous free tier — unlimited basic chat with ads and queueing during peak times
What SpicyChat does not offer is a social network. There is no feed to follow friends, no human DMs, no communities, no pages, and no built-in assistant that helps you manage a broader online life. If your entire goal is AI conversation, that focus is a feature. If you want AI and a social life, it is a limitation.
Head-to-head comparison
Platform purpose
- Public: Full social network with integrated AI characters, assistant, and creator tools
- SpicyChat: Dedicated AI character chat and roleplay platform
Human connection
- Public: Unlimited direct and group chat with real people; follow graph; communities and pages
- SpicyChat: AI characters only — no human messaging or social graph
AI characters
- Public: Community-built characters browsable in Explore and character lists; public profiles at shareable URLs; voice chat on web
- SpicyChat: Very large community character library; advanced discovery filters and recommendations; character ratings and sharing
Your roleplay identity
- Public: Chat Personas — define who you are in character chats (3 free, more on paid plans)
- SpicyChat: User Personas — up to 10 on entry paid tier, up to 100 on top tier
Platform AI assistant
- Public: Public AI can take real actions inside the app (posts, polls, todos, DMs, and more) with your confirmation
- SpicyChat: No separate platform assistant — the product is the character chat itself
Advanced roleplay features
- Public: Thread context and per-conversation model settings on Creator and Pro plans (OpenRouter models, temperature, token limits). No lorebooks or multi-character group chats yet.
- SpicyChat: Semantic Memory 2.0, lorebooks (paid), group chats with multiple characters, chat cloning, and longer premium responses (up to 300 tokens)
Content and creation
- Public: Posts, blogs, Pulse videos, polls, quizzes, Q&A, Status stories — a full creator toolkit beyond chat
- SpicyChat: Conversation-focused; image generation in chat on paid tiers
Growth and productivity
- Public: XP, streaks, missions, challenges, todos, time tools, encrypted password vault
- SpicyChat: Not applicable — chat immersion is the core loop
Mobile access
- Public: Web app, PWA install, and Android app (in.publicapp.android on Google Play)
- SpicyChat: Web-first experience
Where Public wins
- One app, not five. Feed, friends, communities, AI characters, and productivity tools in a single account.
- Characters in context. Follow creators, discover characters through Explore, and see related content in your feed — not isolated in a chat silo.
- Real relationships plus AI fun. Unlimited human chat on every plan, alongside AI character conversations.
- Creator economy beyond chat. Build an audience with pages, blogs, Pulse, polls, and quizzes — not just character prompts.
- Agentic Public AI. An assistant that helps you use the platform, not only talk to fictional characters.
- Strong mid-tier value. Creator at $10/month unlocks custom AI model settings and 1,000 AI character messages per day.
Where SpicyChat wins
- Larger character catalog and a mature ecosystem built purely for roleplay
- Deeper memory and lorebooks for long-running, complex storylines
- Group AI chats with multiple characters in one thread
- More generous free messaging — unlimited basic chat (with ads and queues) vs Public's 20 AI messages per day on free
- Broader premium model selection tuned specifically for immersive chat
Who should choose which?
Choose SpicyChat if…
Your only goal is immersive one-on-one or small-group AI roleplay. You want maximum memory, lorebooks, multi-character threads, and a huge existing character library — and you do not need a social network, human messaging, or content creation tools. SpicyChat is a specialist, and for pure roleplay depth, it delivers.
Choose Public if…
You want AI characters as part of a real social life. You message friends, join study groups or fan communities, post content, take quizzes with classmates, and occasionally chat with an AI mentor or fictional character — all without switching apps.
Public is built for students studying together, creators growing an audience, community builders running groups, everyday social users who want feed plus AI fun, and anyone who prefers growth and connection over endless scrolling. Every account gets access to all features; you use what fits your life.
Why install three apps when Public does it all?
Pricing snapshot
Public
- Free — Core social features; 20 AI character messages/day; 3 AI images/day; 1 character and 3 chat personas
- Basic — $5/month ($49/year) — Higher limits, 10 characters, 200 AI messages/day
- Creator — $10/month ($99/year) — Most popular; unlimited characters and personas; custom AI model settings; 1,000 AI messages/day
- Pro — $20/month ($199/year) — Unlimited AI usage, verified badge, maximum creator limits
Public offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans. See current pricing at public.kim/pricing.
SpicyChat
- Free — Unlimited basic chat with ads and queueing; full character library access
- Get A Taste — $5/month — Ad-free, memory manager, 4K context, priority access, up to 10 personas
- True Supporter — ~$15/month — 8K memory, Semantic Memory 2.0, conversation images, advanced models, longer responses
- I'm All In — ~$25/month — 16K memory, SpicyXL and premium models, text-to-speech, up to 100 personas
SpicyChat pricing may vary by region and billing cycle. Annual plans typically save around 17%.
Value takeaway
Both platforms start paid tiers at $5/month. SpicyChat invests that in ad removal and chat memory. Public invests it in a broader social and creator toolkit with higher AI limits. At the mid tier, Public Creator ($10) vs SpicyChat True Supporter (~$15) is where the philosophies diverge most: Public gives you a social platform plus advanced AI settings; SpicyChat gives you deeper chat immersion. Your choice depends on whether you want a life online or a chat room.
The bottom line
SpicyChat.ai earned its place as a go-to destination for AI roleplay. If chat is the product, it is hard to beat a platform laser-focused on characters, memory, and models.
Public takes a different bet: AI characters are more fun when they sit inside a real social world. Message your friends, join a community, publish a blog, earn XP from daily missions, and then open a conversation with an AI character built by someone in that same community. That integration — social plus AI plus creation — is what makes Public different.
Ready to see for yourself?
- Get started free: public.kim
- Browse AI characters: public.kim/characters/list
- Download the Android app: search "Public" on Google Play (in.publicapp.android)
- Read the docs: docs.public.kim
This article appears on publicapp.in, independent news from the Public family. The full platform lives at public.kim — one place to connect, create, and belong.