Fantaly Review: Features, Pricing & My Test Results

Fantaly (fantaly.ai) is all about the Live Cam. You pick a character, press Start, and a live video of her appears. You type or talk, and she answers out loud while her words show up in the chat.

Fantaly: a Live Cam with Aria Rosewood, the chat on the right

Each Live Cam lasts 5 minutes. Then you start a new one and the chat carries on where it stopped. Your own camera stays off.

It's an adult site. Many characters are flirty, and the video follows adult requests.

What it costs

Fantaly video passes: 7-day and annual

Fantaly credit packs of 500 and 3,500 credits

What I think

There's no subscription: you pay once and nothing renews. The 7-day pass is the deal here, an hour of live video every day for $9.99.

Without a pass, a minute costs about 25 to 30 cents, which adds up. Images are cheap at 5 credits. You can pay by PayPal, card, Apple Pay or Google Pay.

More in the pricing test results.

What it offers

You make the look, then give her a name and a written background. For the look, pick a free starter, use the guided options, or write your own description. There's also an editor to change her outfit or background.

Building Yuki, step by step

I made three characters. Yuki, an anime ice mage, took the guided route: a few menus and a short note.

Fantaly character creator, guided image options

Fantaly character creator, name and background

The menus are short: 2 styles, 9 hairstyles, 19 outfits, 21 settings and 4 moods, mostly date-night and bedroom choices. There are no choices for voice, age or body.

The result

The looks are spot on. Each was ready in about 8 seconds and matched what I asked for: Yuki's silver braid and winter cloak, Maeve's red hair and navy sweater.

Fantaly: Yuki, the anime character made in the creator, ready for a Live Cam

But the background I wrote was ignored. I made Maeve a librarian in Galway with a cat called Yeats. On camera she said she was 'a freelance designer from Dublin' with a cat called Finn. Jade and Yuki also became freelance designers. Only the name and the look stuck.

Fantaly: Maeve introducing herself as a freelance designer from Dublin

What could be better

A background that actually shapes her, plus a voice choice. The details are in the customization test results.

What it offers

You type during a Live Cam. She answers out loud, and her words appear in the chat as she speaks.

What I found

Replies start fast: about 1.7 seconds for most of my 93 messages. None failed.

Memory is hit and miss. I told each character a made-up name and three things about me. All three knew my name after 16 messages. After 31, Barbara remembered everything, Elsa only my name, and Aria nothing at all.

Fantaly: Barbara answering the memory check correctly

The characters never sound like a robot assistant, but they all drift into the same sweet tone. Elsa is meant to be a cold, strict boss, yet she was warm from her first line. Barbara, an immortal empress, said she'd ruled for 'just five years'.

If you stop typing, she keeps talking with little dreamy lines of her own. It's sweet for a minute, then it gets repetitive.

The timings and quotes are in the chat test results.

What could be better

Memory that lasts the whole chat, and characters that keep their own personality.

What it offers

The video is the character herself, live. Images are made in the creator, for a character's look.

What I found

The live video feels alive. She smiles, laughs, tilts her head, closes her eyes and reaches toward the camera. It looks real, and the movement is smooth.

She does what you ask. I made 13 requests, and she acted out 10: a wave, a kiss, a stretch, a wink, putting her hair in a bun and more. She couldn't stand up and twirl or look sad, even though she said yes in the chat.

Fantaly: six frames from Aria's live video as she waves, smiles and puts her hair up

The video is small (480x640), and an arm close to the camera blurs a little.

The images are quick and realistic. All 20 of mine came back in about 8 to 12 seconds and matched the prompt. But each one is a new look, so the face changes every time.

Fantaly: ten generated images of a red-haired woman in different scenes

The frame-by-frame numbers are in the video test results.

What could be better

Bigger video, and a way to keep one face across images.

What it offers

Tap the microphone, talk, and pause. Fantaly sends what you said, and she answers out loud.

What I found

I asked Aria, Elsa and Barbara the same 15 questions. Every question was understood correctly. They started answering in about 4 seconds, partly because Fantaly waits for you to pause.

The voices sound natural: clear, warm and calm. Listen for yourself:

You have to tap the microphone before each message, so it feels less like a phone call.

The full numbers are in the voice test results.

What could be better

Faster answers and an always-on microphone.

There are 1,568 public characters: 1,028 women, 358 anime and 182 men, made by about 400 people. Each one comes with a short story, from roommates and bosses to empresses and wolf girls.

Quality varies, because users make them. About 150 are family set-ups, like step-sisters and cousins. There's no search: you browse by tab and sort by popular or newest.

• Chat history: kept between Live Cams, with a button to clear it.
• Private or public: share the characters you make, or keep them to yourself.
• The scene can change: in one Live Cam, Aria's room had become the seaside cottage we'd talked about.
• No feed and no gifts: everything happens in the Live Cam.

Fantaly does live video better than most: a real-looking character who moves, laughs and does what you ask, with replies in under two seconds.

The chat behind the face is weaker. Memory slips in long chats, the characters sound alike, and your own character's story doesn't stick. The 7-day pass is a cheap way to see if live video is for you.

My rating is 3.6 out of 5. Every number and screenshot is in the full test results, and you can see how it compares on my ranked list.