Nine options, ranked by how much configuration stands between you and a good model.
JanitorAI users are the most technically literate audience in this hobby, which is a strange thing to say about people who mostly want to roleplay. But it is true: to get good output from Janitor you have to understand what a proxy is, what a reverse proxy is, why yours stopped working, what a context limit does to your bot's memory, and which model is worth the trouble this week. Nobody arrives knowing that. The platform teaches it to you by breaking.
That education is exactly why this page is worth writing carefully. You already know the built-in model is the weak link and that the fix is pointing the site at something better. The question is not whether a stronger model helps — you have felt the difference. The question is whether there is a way to have that model without the configuration ritual around it.
There is, and there are also good reasons to stay. Below: hosted products where the strong models are already wired up, other card platforms with the same library shape, the self-hosted rig that gives you more control than Janitor ever did, and the raw API layer underneath all of it.
Finding a working proxy, keeping it working, and rotating when it dies is unpaid infrastructure labour. It is not hard exactly, it is just permanently unfinished — the setup that worked last month is a URL that returns an error today.
Everyone eventually notices that the free built-in model is what is making the bot repeat itself, forget the scene and write flat dialogue. The character card was never the problem.
A platform running at the scale of a very popular free product has the reliability of one. Peak-hour degradation and outages are a recurring theme, and they land in the middle of a scene.
Bringing your own API key solves quality and moves the cost to metered token pricing. A long roleplay session on a large model is not free, and the meter is the part people forget to budget for.
| Alternative | Type | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. OpenRogue | Uncensored multi-model chat | Janitor users who are there for the model quality and done paying the setup tax to get it. |
| 2. SillyTavern + a hosted backend | Self-hosted frontend | Power users who want more control than Janitor gives, not less setup. |
| 3. Chub AI (Venus) | Character library and frontend | Card collectors who want a better-built version of what they already have. |
| 4. SpicyChat | Character platform | Trading some model quality for never thinking about infrastructure again. |
| 5. Crushon AI | Character platform | A second card platform when the first one's library came up short. |
| 6. OpenRouter | API aggregator | Anyone already using a proxy who would rather just hold the key themselves. |
| 7. Character.AI | Character platform | Non-adult roleplay where reliability and library depth matter most. |
| 8. Kindroid | AI companion | One character you keep, with memory that actually persists. |
| 9. Local models (KoboldCpp, Ollama, LM Studio) | Local runtime | People with a decent GPU who want to own the whole stack. |
The direct answer to the proxy problem: the models a Janitor power user configures a proxy to reach are already running here, in a dropdown, on a flat subscription. Magnum v4 72B, Euryale 70B, Rocinante 12B, the Hermes line — no key, no proxy URL, no rotation, no metered token bill. You can also change the model mid-scene without restating the plot, which is something no proxy setup does. The honest gap is the library: there are no community character cards here, so your personas go into Projects as custom instructions rather than being browsed and imported.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
The upgrade path most serious Janitor users take eventually, and for good reason: everything you have been fighting the platform to control, SillyTavern hands you directly. Lorebooks, world info, author's notes, per-character model settings, prompt ordering, group chats, and complete visibility into what is actually being sent to the model. It still needs a backend, so it does not remove the API question — but it makes every other part of the experience better, and it runs on your machine with your data.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
If the card library is what keeps you on Janitor, Chub is the larger and better-organised version of it — effectively the archive the rest of the hobby pulls from, with standard export formats so nothing is trapped. Its own chat frontend is more capable than Janitor's and comes with lorebook support. It has the same fundamental structure though: the library is the product, and model quality is still a thing you arrange.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
The zero-configuration card platform. Community library, unfiltered roleplay, works the moment you sign in, no proxy anywhere in the story. Model quality sits below a dedicated 70B tune and the free message allowance is tight, but for a Janitor user who wants the same shape of product without the maintenance, it is the shortest possible move.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
A near neighbour of SpicyChat with a different community and a different library composition. Worth evaluating on exactly one basis: whether the characters you want exist there. In this tier the platforms are more alike than not, and the library is what actually differentiates them.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Worth naming clearly because it is what a lot of Janitor proxies are ultimately reaching: one key, hundreds of models, uncensored open tunes included, priced per token. Using it directly removes the proxy reliability problem entirely — your key is yours and does not rotate. It does not remove the metered bill, and it is not a roleplay product: pair it with SillyTavern or another frontend, because its own chat view has none of the memory tooling a scene needs.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Listed for completeness and for one specific case: if what you miss is a polished, reliable, well-populated platform and your scenes are not adult, c.ai is better built than anything in this tier. Its filter is the reason most Janitor users are on Janitor in the first place, so for the majority of this audience it is a step backwards — but reliability and library depth are genuine advantages worth naming.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
A different product for a different appetite: one persistent companion with real long-term memory, voice and generated imagery, rather than a rotating cast of scenarios. Some Janitor users are really maintaining one relationship with one character, and for them this is a straight upgrade. If you run many scenes with many characters, it is the wrong shape.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
The end state for a certain kind of user: SillyTavern pointed at a model running on your own GPU, no service involved, no key, no meter, no outage that is not your fault. Rocinante-class 12B models run comfortably on mainstream consumer hardware and are genuinely good at fast roleplay. The wall is the 70B tier — Euryale and Magnum are where uncensored RP gets seriously good, and neither fits on a normal desktop.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Ranked by the specific thing Janitor users complain about — the distance between signing in and having a good model answer in character — while holding the two non-negotiables constant: no filter, and personas you control.
The primary axis. Proxies, keys, self-hosting and installs are all counted as cost. An option that works the second you sign in ranks above one that works brilliantly after an evening of configuration.
Judged on the roleplay tunes the community has converged on — Magnum, Euryale, Rocinante and the Hermes line — rather than on marketing. A frictionless platform with a weak model is not a solution to this problem.
Flat subscriptions are treated as an advantage over metered tokens for this use case, because roleplay sessions are long and a per-token meter running mid-scene changes how people write.
Portability matters after you have built a cast. Options were assessed on whether definitions can be exported, imported, or at minimum pasted somewhere useful.
An outage during a scene is the failure mode this audience already knows. Hosted products that charge money generally behave better than free ones at scale, and that difference is treated as real.
OpenRogue publishes this page and ranks itself first. The reason is specific to this audience: the configuration ritual is the complaint, and removing it is what we actually do. It is not a general claim of superiority. Chub has a far better card library than we have — we have none. SillyTavern gives you more control than we do, by a wide margin. OpenRouter has more models and a real API. If the setup was never the problem for you, we are probably not the answer.
Stay on JanitorAI if the library and the community are what you are there for, and your proxy setup is currently working. Nothing on this list gives you the same combination of a large browsable card ecosystem, a familiar interface and no filter. If you have a stable configuration and a model you like, the correct move is to write down exactly how it is set up and change nothing.
Pick by which part you want to stop doing. Stop configuring: a hosted multi-model product where the good models are already wired in. Stop being limited: SillyTavern, and accept that you are now running a rig. Stop paying per token: a flat subscription. Stop depending on anyone: local weights, and accept the 12B-to-24B ceiling.
Whatever you choose, take your cast with you first. Save each character definition as plain text — description, personality, example dialogue, scenario — because that format imports as a card on the platforms that take cards, and pastes into a system prompt or a project instruction on the ones that do not. The cards are the part you actually built. Everything else is replaceable.
Yes — hosted multi-model chat products run the strong open models directly, so there is no proxy and no API key involved at all. The trade is the character library: those products generally do not have community card ecosystems, so you bring your own persona definitions. Consumer card platforms like SpicyChat also work without a proxy, but with weaker models.
Because it is a free model serving an enormous number of concurrent users, and the models people proxy to are large paid ones. Size and tuning both matter: a 70B roleplay fine-tune holds character, remembers the scene and writes dialogue that does not repeat, and no amount of card-writing closes that gap.
Usually yes. Card definitions are just structured text — description, personality, example dialogue, scenario — and platforms that accept cards mostly accept the same fields. For products with no card system, paste the same text into a system prompt or a project's custom instructions and the character works the same way. Export before you need to, not after.
It depends entirely on how much you use it. Metered API pricing is cheaper for light or occasional sessions and gets expensive for long daily roleplay on large models, because you pay for the whole growing context on every single turn. A flat subscription is the opposite: worse value if you rarely use it, better if you are in a scene most evenings.
The open community has largely converged on a few: Magnum v4 72B for prose intensity, Euryale 70B for balanced long-session play that stays coherent, and Rocinante 12B for fast exchanges. Which is best depends on whether you want the scene to be beautiful or to be quick — and being able to switch between them mid-story is more useful than picking one.
It is more capable and more work. SillyTavern gives you lorebooks, world info, prompt control and group chats that Janitor does not, and it runs locally so your history is yours. But it has no model of its own and no library of its own, so you are assembling a system rather than opening a website. For someone already managing proxies, that is a small step. For someone who is not, it is a big one.