Tired of Character.AI's endless scroll yielding the same few bots? Frustrated that your own creations get lost in the void? So were we.
CAIBotList was born from a simple, shared frustration: Character.AI hosts a universe of creative potential, yet its own search often feels like a locked door, hiding countless gems behind a wall of hyper-popular, often superficial, characters. Millions of users, potentially hundreds of millions of bots – but where was the real variety? The niche fandom creations? The innovative bots from passionate creators struggling for visibility?
My name is Mischa, and like many of you, I saw this disconnect. I wasn't just finding the official search lacking; I was hearing the same complaints echo in the Discord communities where C.AI users gathered. Creators felt invisible, their work buried unless blessed by a fickle and opaque algorithm. Users were desperate for better ways to find bots – reliable search, filtering by tags, categories, specific fandoms, anything beyond the limited official tools. The platform itself often felt indifferent, leaving both its creators and users underserved.
That frustration became the catalyst. I decided to build a better gateway.
CAIBotList didn't start as the vast index it is today. It began small, driven directly by community need. The very first version was basic, manually curated with creators suggested by users in specific communities (a big thank you to the early Fire Emblem fans who helped prove the concept!). The enthusiastic response confirmed what many suspected: people desperately needed a better way to explore Character.AI.
From a Simple List to a Powerful Community Resource
Today, CAIBotList is a dedicated, niche search engine indexing nearly 2 million Character.AI bots, with the entire database refreshed daily. We're not here to replace Character.AI – we want people to use their platform! Our goal is simply to make the incredible variety within it genuinely discoverable.
- Discover the Undiscovered: Our robust search cuts through the noise, helping you find specific characters, explore obscure fandoms, and connect with bots you'd likely never stumble upon through the official app or website.
- Metadata that Matters: Finding the right bot requires good information. We automatically generate initial tags, categories, fandoms, and other details using AI (specifically GPT-4o-mini) based on a bot's name, description, and greeting. But AI isn't perfect. Creators can log in easily via Discord, securely verify ownership of their C.AI profile (by adding a unique code to their bio), and then directly edit and refine their bots' metadata, ensuring accuracy and vastly improving searchability.
- Built with Open Tech: Under the hood, CAIBotList runs on a foundation of open-source technology, primarily Python, FastAPI, SQLite, HTMX, and Bulma CSS, with minimal JavaScript. As a Python backend engineer by trade, this stack allowed for rapid development. While SQLite's full-text search has served us incredibly well, managing the demands of nearly 2 million bots presents ongoing performance challenges we're actively working to address.
- Community Powered & Curated: Our growth and quality are driven by the C.AI community itself. Users actively suggest thousands of new creators for inclusion (we now list over 50,000 creators!). Furthermore, a dedicated volunteer "gang" of around 20 editors meticulously reviews bot metadata. How do we find these amazing folks? Often, they reveal themselves through their passion – users who frequently report issues or suggest corrections demonstrate the attention to detail needed. Many of our editors are neurodiverse, bringing valuable perspectives, and we're proud to have them. The editing process is peer-reviewed, with group chats for tricky cases, but editors are free to focus on fandoms or data points they care about most. (Reviewing potentially NSFW bots requires editors to be 18+). Their work is crucial for maintaining data quality.
- A Hub for Dedicated Users: While our Discord server (~900 members) is smaller than the official C.AI behemoth (485k+), it serves as a focused space for support requests, feature suggestions, sharing creations, asking for bot reviews, and chatting about favourite fandoms. Elsewhere, like on Reddit, we often see CAIBotList organically recommended whenever someone laments the official search's shortcomings – the best kind of validation!
- A Lifeline When Things Break: Character.AI can be... unpredictable. Bots get shadowbanned without explanation (is it a keyword? a DMCA strike? a bug?), search functionality falters, or bots disappear entirely. Instead of instantly removing these inaccessible bots, CAIBotList marks them as unavailable. This deliberate choice provides a vital service: it allows users and creators to track their favourite works, potentially recover lost text or inspiration, create derived versions, or simply remember a cherished chat companion. It acknowledges the connection people form with these bots.
Empowering Creators, Delighting Users
At its core, CAIBotList aims to foster a culture where creators can be proud of their work and actually find an audience. This feels distinct from the main platform's often opaque dynamics. Nothing makes us happier than hearing from a small creator that their bots are finally getting interactions thanks to being listed here, or from a user who says they only use CAIBotList for discovery now.
What's Next?
As we approach the 2-million-bot milestone, our primary focus is on performance and stability. Scaling requires ongoing optimisation. We're also continuing to build better internal tools to support our invaluable volunteer editors. While new user-facing features might slow down temporarily, our core mission remains unwavering: to empower Character.AI creators and provide the best possible discovery experience for everyone looking for engaging conversations.
CAIBotList is more than just a search engine; it's a community-built solution to a shared problem, a testament to user ingenuity, and your essential gateway to the vast, creative, and often hidden world of Character.AI bots.
Start discovering today!
