The culture is deliberately hands-off. The pseudonymous founder, Lore, has said the site moderates advertising images but not the text prompts behind cards. That stance made it a refuge for people leaving filtered platforms, and it also drew a critical 2023 Fortune investigation into what an unmoderated library collects. Treat the card catalog like the open internet. The good stuff is excellent. The rest you filter out with tags and blocklists before you ever see it.

• Character card hub- Tens of thousands of user-made cards in the standard Tavern format, searchable by tag and rating, with free import and export to SillyTavern and other frontends.
• Lorebooks- Attachable world-info entries that inject persistent facts, settings, and relationships into context. This is the closest thing to real long-term memory in card-based roleplay, so your companion keeps track of who and what matters.
• Bring your own model- Connect OpenAI-compatible API keys, other providers, or a self-hosted backend instead of Chub's hosted models. Do that and the subscription becomes optional.
• Hosted model tiers- Mercury at $5/mo covers 7B and 13B-class models with 8K context. Mars at $20/mo opens up 70B-class models plus unlimited voice and multimedia.
• Full prompt control- System prompts, jailbreak slots, generation parameters, and chat exports are all user-editable. Nothing here is a black box you have to trust blindly.

Chub feels like a tool, not a product, for better and worse. Card search and lorebooks are the best in the category. Pointing it at our own API key produced better roleplay than most $15/mo competitors, and characters stayed in voice and remembered what mattered. On Mercury's small hosted models, though, characters lost the plot fast, and the onboarding assumes vocabulary a newcomer simply will not have yet. Once we configured tag filters, browsing stayed clean. Out of the box, the library is unfiltered in every sense, so spend the first ten minutes setting up blocklists.

• Enormous library of user-made character cards, importable and exportable in the standard Tavern format, so nothing is locked in
• Lorebooks and deep prompt control that mainstream apps hide from you
• Runs on your own API keys or self-hosted models, so you are never chained to Chub's hosted tiers
• Cheap entry at $5/mo for hosted models, on top of a genuinely free browsing tier
• Effectively no content filter for text roleplay, so you are not fighting a hidden gatekeeper

• The interface assumes you already know what a character card and a lorebook are. Rough first hour for beginners
• Mercury's hosted models are small and it shows. Good output really starts at Mars or your own keys
• Plans are advertised monthly but bill upfront in multi-month blocks
• Minimal moderation cuts both ways. The library holds material many people will want to avoid, and a 2023 Fortune investigation criticized what its unmoderated cards accumulated
• No mobile apps, and the dense web UI is a squeeze on a phone

An account is required, and hosted-model chats are processed on Chub's servers. Connect your own API key and your messages also flow through that provider under its retention policy. Free-tier chat logs are not kept long-term, which is arguably a privacy plus. No breach has been reported. Still, the minimal-moderation stance and pseudonymous operation mean you are extending more trust than you would to an established company. Use a throwaway email, check what your card imports actually contain, and keep real-world identifiers out of your chats.

Chub AI gives tinkerers unmatched library depth, card portability, and model freedom for the price, and a genuinely free browsing tier to prove it before you pay. That is held back by onboarding that assumes you already speak the jargon, so the first hour is steep if you have never touched a character card. Curious and willing to learn? Start with the free browsing tier and a throwaway email, no card needed. If you want a polished app that just works, or curated content boundaries, SpicyChat or Character.AI will feel kinder.

Is Chub AI free?

Partly. Browsing, creating, and exporting character cards costs nothing, and there is a small free message allowance on basic hosted models. Unlimited chat means Mercury at $5/mo, Mars at $20/mo, or connecting your own API key. That last route is free of Chub's limits but assumes some technical comfort.

Does Chub AI have a filter?

Not meaningfully for text. The platform moderates card preview images but leaves the text prompts behind cards alone, so you are not fighting a hidden gatekeeper mid-scene. Content controls sit on your side, through tags and blocklists you configure. Set those up before you browse and the library stays clean.

Does Chub AI work with SillyTavern?

Yes. Chub uses the standard Tavern card format, so characters and lorebooks move freely between Chub, SillyTavern, and other compatible frontends. Nothing you make is locked in. You can export a card, run it elsewhere, and bring it back, which is a big reason power users like the platform.

Is Chub AI safe?

The site itself has no reported breach, but it is pseudonymously run with minimal moderation, and a 2023 Fortune investigation criticized what its unmoderated library hosted. Use a dedicated email, configure tag filters before browsing, and keep identifying details out of chats. That is normal hygiene for any platform storing sensitive logs.

How does Chub AI billing work?

Mercury is $5/mo and Mars is $20/mo, but at the time of our testing both billed upfront in multi-month blocks rather than true month-to-month. Check the checkout total before you subscribe, because the first charge is larger than the monthly figure suggests. It is reversible, but confirm the number first.

Does Chub AI have an app?

No. Chub is web-only. It runs in mobile browsers, but the dense interface is clearly built for a desktop screen, and long card names and lorebook panels feel cramped on a phone. If phone use matters to you, CrushOn's native apps are a smoother fit than squeezing Chub onto a small display.