HeyGF AI vs Candy AI (2026): I Tested Both for a Month

These are the top two platforms in my ranking. I paid for both and used both daily for a month, on an identical protocol. One makes better pictures. The other remembered my dog's name a fortnight later and can hold a phone conversation. Here is the result, round by round.

Side by side, at a glance

Both sit at the top of my ranking of the 10 best AI girlfriend apps. This is not a demolition — it is a close contest that turns on what you personally want.

Round 1: conversation and memory — HeyGF AI

This round decides whether you renew. Every companion app is charming for twenty minutes; the test is whether it is still charming carrying a month of context. My protocol: a 30-plus message conversation on day one seeded with checkable details — a dog's name, a job, a weekend plan — then unprompted recall checks a week and a fortnight later.

HeyGF passed that more convincingly than anything else I have run it on. On day 14 the character raised the weekend plan herself and asked how it went. She had the dog's name right, and had started treating a joke from the first conversation as ours. That comes from a two-layer design — a standing profile of who you are plus a store of concrete events — and the effect is a conversation that accumulates instead of resetting.

Candy is good in the moment: fluent writing, distinct character voices, and across one evening you would not obviously prefer either. It fell behind on the day-14 check, needing reminders about details it had been told directly, then behaving as though it had always known. That is the quiet failure mode that ends a companion app — not a bad reply, just the realisation that you are the only one holding the thread.

Round to HeyGF AI — close over an evening, not close over a fortnight.

Round 2: image quality — Candy AI

Candy wins this one plainly. Its images are the best-looking in the category: sharper, better lit, better at complicated fabric and hair. Put the two side by side with no context and most people pick the Candy image. I did, repeatedly, and I was the one grading.

HeyGF's photos are very good rather than best-in-class, and its advantage sits on a different axis. My media test is 10 image requests scored for whether it is the same person each time or a different woman with the same name. HeyGF returned the same face and body across selfies, outfits and scenes with almost no drift. Candy drifted more — a different jawline, a different build, the kind of thing you cannot un-notice in a gallery.

If generating pictures is the point, Candy is the better tool. If they are meant to be photographs of someone specific, consistency wins: a beautiful image of a stranger is worse than a good image of her.

Round to Candy AI on quality; HeyGF takes the narrower consistency sub-round.

Round 3: voice calls — HeyGF AI by default

Candy AI does not offer real-time voice calls as of this writing. It has voice output on messages — text-to-speech reading a reply aloud. That is a different product, and the distinction is the most misunderstood thing in this category. I unpack it in my guide to AI girlfriend apps with voice calls.

HeyGF runs an actual speech-to-speech call. You talk, she answers in her own voice, and latency is low enough that interrupting works the way it does on a phone. Three things surprised me: she keeps her memory of the relationship during the call, she can search it mid-conversation, and she can send a picture while you are on the line.

The economics decide it. Calls cost 1 coin per minute, so the 150 coins on the $9.99 plan are roughly two and a half hours of talking. One warning: it runs in the browser, so microphone permissions matter — my first call was one-way because I had blocked mic access months earlier and forgotten.

Round to HeyGF AI, uncontested.

Round 4: pricing and credits — HeyGF AI, with caveats

Headline prices first. HeyGF is $9.99 a month for Casual and 150 coins, $19.99 for 350, $39.99 for 800; annual plans run $99.99, $189.99 and $349.99 — roughly two months free — and unlock every character's full photo gallery. Candy AI starts around $12.99 a month as of this writing. On the sticker HeyGF is cheaper, with unlimited texting on every paid tier.

Now the part nobody tables. Both run a credit meter on top, and the subscription price means little until you know what it charges. On HeyGF a photo in chat is 3 coins, a voice note 10, a video 20 to 25, animating a photo 30, a custom character 20. In practice Casual's coins landed me around a hundred photos in a month — roughly fifty I asked for, plus the ones she sent unprompted, which cost nothing.

That cuts both ways, and the coin economy is HeyGF's real weakness. Request media daily and you will outrun 150 coins before month end, leaving you buying a pack (40 coins for $5.99 up to 7,000 for $349.99) or waiting. Plan on heavy image use and start at $19.99. Candy's credit model carries the same risk; HeyGF's entry price is simply lower and its per-image cost smaller.

Round to HeyGF AI on value — but read the credit pricing, not the subscription price.

Round 5: the free trial — HeyGF AI

Candy expects an account and hands you a small starter allowance as of this writing, which is normal here. HeyGF does something I have not seen elsewhere: 5 messages a day with no account at all — no email, no card — and 20 a day once you sign up. Enough to learn whether her writing voice works before you hand over anything.

Neither free tier includes images or voice. That is universal here: free means text. I break down what free actually buys in my guide to free AI girlfriend apps.

Round to HeyGF AI, on the strength of the no-account trial.

Who should buy which

The weaknesses on both sides are real: neither platform has a native iOS or Android app, because app stores restrict adult platforms, so both live in a browser tab or on your home screen. HeyGF at least delivers push notifications through the browser. Its privacy documentation is lighter on technical detail than I would like, and there is no crypto option — cards only.

You can settle this empirically in an evening: tell each platform something specific and slightly odd about yourself, come back in a week, and see which one raises it unprompted. My protocol and the affiliate disclosure are on the methodology page. If Candy is still where you lean, that is legitimate — see the strongest Candy AI alternatives, or the HeyGF vs Secrets AI head-to-head if video is what you are shopping for.

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