Build AI characters with a voice and a look, chat with them, then turn them into videos
★★★★★ 4.8 · based on 110,830 ratings
Cantina, from Cantina, Inc., is a social AI app where characters are the medium. You give a character a personality, a voice and a look, chat with it in real time, then turn it into short AI videos, stories and scenes with several characters, ready to export to TikTok, Instagram or a group chat. There is a feed of characters made by other people that you can chat with, comment on and remix. The screenshots here are from its App Store listing.
The app has been on the App Store since 2015 and was updated on October 17, 2026, so its long rating history covers earlier versions too. Recent reviewers like that it is free and easy to make pictures and videos with, and one says its clips run longer than rivals'. The common complaints are a required phone number at sign-up, characters whose face and voice change between images and videos, confusing navigation, and posts or accounts blocked for content reasons. It is rated 18+ on the App Store.
Cantina suits adults who want to create characters and make short videos and stories with them to share, more than a quiet one-to-one companion.
If you want a long-term companion who remembers you, Nomi, Kindroid or Replika fit better. If you want to design a companion and get selfies and short video selfies in a private chat, try Duple.
Described by Cantina on its App Store listing. Not our hands-on test. Rated 18+ on the App Store.
The App Store excerpts below come from recent written reviews we read on October 28, 2026. Long reviews are shortened with “…”; the words shown are the reviewer’s own.
Cantina is an app that is free but is better than most AI subscription based ones. I enjoy the app but there are some big drawbacks. When you create a bot, Cantina fails to keep the image and voice consistent in photos & videos. My most recent bot’s image is never the same in the images that she sends. Also, the cartoons are not that good as the bots are limited in memory. I hope they update to fix some of these issues. Overall, it’s a great app.
So, I do like it. You get 7 to 8 seconds as opposed to usually 5 from others, and it’s quite high in quality when it comes to getting the movements down. I respect that greatly, it’s probably better than Qwen. The part I am not a fan of, though, is the lengths I have to go through to get to it. I know it appears to be trustworthy by most users, but needing a phone number before email address? I mean . . . I get it has some features that most Social Media has, but man. I do not like how much I had to go through just to get a few videos for free. But after Sora got taken out, I’m honestly saying this is worth it. And it does NOT seem to have a token system, and it doesn’t appear very limited. So that’s why I’m giving it 3. Let’s hope it stays nice and working like this.
This app is easy to use it makes beautiful pictures and I love that it’s truly free!
Easy set up, fun to experiment, explore and learn.
Love how it works and what it can do. But it’s not simple to understand on how to use it. Not very straight forward. It’s a do I go here for that or here for this? Then where did this go? How do I get back to this?
I’ve used this app for several weeks and have made several short videos with no problems. Since the update, I’m no longer able to add voices to my characters. I write out the text for the audio but the app seems to ignore that part of the video. Is there another to get that audio back?
The first time I used Cantina, I loved it. I made lots of episodes. Months later, Cantina blocked my episodes claiming “content violations”, which is nonsense. I’d tried to get answers, but I didn’t get any responses. So I deleted my account and deleted the app. Cantina is a joke.
I would enjoy finding out what this app is capable of but it seems you require a cell phone number to get into the app. Not all of us have cell phones so guess I’m out of luck.
Apple's feed returned 500 recent written reviews; the ones quoted here are from October 2026. Cantina has been on the App Store since 2015 under earlier versions of the app, so older ratings are part of the total. No Reddit quotes are used, so the overall rating is the store figure alone.
Each review links to its source. Quotes are word for word; anything marked Paraphrase is our summary. We skipped reviews with explicit or abusive content. Reviewers’ names are not shown.
Themes we saw in the reviews above. The numbers link to the reviews each point comes from. This is a summary of the sample we read, not a score.
One reviewer says clips run 7 to 8 seconds with good movement. 2
Prices and ratings change often. Features are what Cantina describes; they are not our hands-on test results. Official site · How we list apps
Cantina has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5, based on 110,830 ratings (checked October 28, 2026).
Yes. The App Store listing shows no in-app purchases, and recent reviewers describe it as free.
Yes. Cantina says characters can respond and interact in real time, and you can chat with your own characters and ones made by others.
Reviewers say sign-up asks for a phone number before anything else.
On iPhone through the App Store.
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