NovelAI vs AI Dungeon: Which Story AI Is Worth It?

The short version

Both tools are for writing stories with an AI, not for chatting with a character card. NovelAI is the better buy for most adult writers. It costs less per month, gives unlimited text on every paid plan, and encrypts your stories so only you can read them. AI Dungeon is the better fit if you want a game: Do, Say and Story turns, community scenarios, and a free tier you can play without paying. The trade-off is privacy. AI Dungeon holds the keys to your stories, and new accounts reportedly have training switched on.

Price

NovelAI starts with Tablet at $10 a month. Scroll is $15 and Opus is $25. Every paid tier includes unlimited text generation, so you never count replies. The catch is that there is no free tier, only the Paper trial with 50 text, 30 image and 100 TTS generations. The largest context for some models needs Opus.

AI Dungeon starts with Journey at $14.99 a month, then Legend at $29.99, Mythic at $49.99 and Ultimate at $99.99. Paid tiers raise context and add monthly credits for larger models. The free tier is real: the pricing page lists the free story models as unlimited. But those models have only 2k to 4K context, which forgets a scene quickly.

If you want to play for free, AI Dungeon wins. If you plan to pay, NovelAI gives you more for less.

Features

NovelAI is a writing editor. You get lorebooks for world facts, modules to shape style, scripts, and a text adventure mode when you want game-style play. On the site, GLM-4.6 and Xialong get 28,672 tokens of context; Erato and Kayra are also listed, at 8,192. It also does image generation and text-to-speech. There is no public character catalog.

AI Dungeon is a story game. Each turn you choose Do, Say or Story, which gives you clear control over pacing. Story Cards hold facts about people and places, and Plot Components hold larger world rules. There are hundreds of community scenarios to start from. Paid tiers step context up through 8k, 16k, 32k and 64k, and the paid tiers add DeepSeek and Ultra models. It runs on the web, iOS and Windows via Steam, while NovelAI is web only.

AI Dungeon has the higher context ceiling and the bigger scenario library. NovelAI has the cleaner writing tools and no limits on text output.

Privacy and trust

This is where the two differ most. NovelAI encrypts stories, lorebooks and scripts end to end with a key derived from your password, and says prompts are not kept. The cost: lose your password and your stories are gone.

AI Dungeon encrypts stories too, but its encryption FAQ says the keys are held on its servers. According to a third-party review, new accounts start with the Improve the AI training option switched on. The age check is a single 18+ confirmation when you enable Mature. NovelAI requires 18+ in its terms with no published check either.

On reputation, AI Dungeon’s Steam rating is Mixed from 810 reviews. NovelAI has almost no public reviews, so there is little to go on either way.

Who should pick which

Pick NovelAI if you write long adult fiction, want unlimited text for a flat fee, and care about who can read your work. It is the stronger choice overall.

Pick AI Dungeon if you want a text adventure game more than a writing tool, like starting from community scenarios, or want to play without paying. Turn off the training setting before you start anything private.