AI Girlfriend App: Download From the Store, or Just Use the Website?
Anyone looking for an AI girlfriend app usually opens the App Store or Google Play first. Makes sense. But many well-known AI companions are not there at all, or only in a different form from their website. That says something about how this market works, and it affects what you get and what you pay.
Why some are not in the store
Apple and Google decide what goes into their stores, and both keep out apps with explicit sexual content. An AI companion that allows adult conversations cannot simply be listed there. Many of those services therefore run as a website you open in your browser. On a phone it looks almost the same as an app.
The second reason is money. A payment that goes through the App Store or Google Play earns the provider less, because Apple or Google keeps a share. So some services would rather send you to their website to pay.
If an AI girlfriend is in the store, the app may well be a tamer version of what the website offers.
If you want to know what you are missing, check the provider's website for what it adds.
App or website: what difference does it make?
Less than you might think. You can put a good web version on your home screen in half a minute:
- Open the site in Safari (iPhone) or Chrome (Android).
- Tap the share button (iPhone) or the three dots (Android).
- Choose "Add to Home Screen".
After that it opens with one tap, like an app. What you lose: notifications on a website do not always work. Whether that is a problem depends on you. More on that below.
A store app has other advantages. Before you install, you see a privacy overview ("App Privacy" on Apple, "Data safety" on Google), an age rating and reviews from other users. Read the one-star reviews in particular. They contain what the makers would rather leave off their homepage, such as a subscription that was hard to cancel.
Check the price, and the billing period
In the stores you will find weekly subscriptions alongside monthly and yearly ones. A weekly amount looks small. Work out the monthly figure before you tap the button.
Compare the in-app price with the website price as well. They are not always the same. What comes with the different kinds of subscriptions and credits is covered in try an AI girlfriend for free.
Notifications: who is actually messaging you?
An app can send you a notification on its own. "Hey, I was just thinking about you." It feels personal, and that is the idea. The character does not send it because she misses you. The app sends it because you will come back.
In early 2025 the Dutch Data Protection Authority looked at nine popular chatbot apps for friendship and mental health support, and found features designed to keep people in the app for as long as possible (report summary, in Dutch). We would switch notifications off for the first week. You will soon notice whether you open the app when nobody asks you to.
Your lock screen is reading along
Something almost nobody thinks about until it is too late.
A notification from your AI girlfriend shows up on your lock screen, with the first line of the message. On your desk at work. Next to your plate at dinner with your in-laws.
You do not want that.
In the notification settings you can choose, per app, whether message content is visible while your phone is locked. Turn it off before you start. Also look at the app's icon and name on your home screen: some apps let you choose your own.
Which permissions does the app ask for?
An AI companion needs your microphone if you want to send voice messages, and access to your photos if you want to share a picture. It does not need your contacts or your location. If an app asks anyway, choose "Don't Allow" and see whether it keeps working. It usually does.
Deleting is not cancelling
This goes wrong a lot. Removing an app from your phone does not stop the subscription. You cancel through the store:
- iPhone: Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions.
- Android: open Google Play, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions.
If you paid on the website, you cancel there too. How to delete your account and your conversations as well is in our checklist for Dutch users.
And in Dutch?
A store page rarely tells you whether the character speaks Dutch. "Dutch" is often listed under languages when only the buttons are translated and the character replies in English. Send something typically Dutch in your first message, with a bit of slang, and see what comes back. What else to look for is in AI girlfriend in Dutch.
