Chatzy alternative: text a stranger instead of inviting friends

Chatzy is free to start and $24 a year if you want the limits gone. That money buys space: more than ten people in a room, private messages, no ads and no timeouts. It makes sense for what Chatzy is, a private text room you set up with one form and share by link with people you already know. Veilr does the opposite job. It finds you someone to talk to, one-to-one, and the text box at the top of this page is where that starts.

What Chatzy charges, from its own page

Chatzy's premium page lists three prices in US dollars, paid through PayPal: $10 for 3 months, $15 for 6 months and $24 for 12, which works out to $2.00 a month on the yearly plan. There are two things to buy.

• Premium User: access to every room without limits, private messages in any room, no ads, no timeouts and unlimited lists.
• Premium Room: no cap on participants, private messages between everyone, no ads, the full chat history, a URL of your own and a way to embed the room in your website. What a Premium Room costs on its own isn't shown on the part of the page we could see.

The same page still lists "HTTPS privacy" as a paid perk. That line is out of date: the whole site serves HTTPS to everyone (checked 27 August 2026).

What a free room runs into

• Ten people at once, at most.
• Idle members are logged out: after 60 minutes in a room of six or fewer, then after 50, 40, 30 and 20 minutes as it fills to seven, eight, nine and ten. If people are queuing to get in, it's 15.
• One ad, which changes every two minutes.
• Lists stop at 40 entries, or 12 on the mobile version.
• A room nobody has written in for 14 days may be deleted. Premium rooms are kept for at least six months.
• If a room's owner vanishes, admin rights go only to a paying user, "since these have been positively identified."

What Chatzy does well

It has lasted. The domain was registered on 19 September 2002, and an archived copy from February 2003 already shows the service running. Few chat sites are still around after 24 years.

Getting in takes nothing. "Chatzy has no registration steps - your friends can join instantly," in its own words, with nothing to install. An email registration is optional and gets you a list of your rooms, a nickname that stays yours and the right to post images, which only registered users have. Chatzy promises to work in any language and "through corporate firewalls", and it has been making that promise since 2003.

Rooms are unlisted by default. Chatzy keeps no directory of its own; its "Find More Rooms" page simply searches Google for public ones. It also turns down adult advertising: "Do you accept advertising from adult websites or the like? No, we do not."

A room owner gets real tools. There are five levels of rights, bans by email or network address, silencing, skins, /set commands and an iframe to put the room on another site. And Chatzy is text, full stop: its FAQ says it doesn't support webcams, and there's no voice.

What Chatzy leaves to you

Its rules say it plainly: "Since Chatzy does not monitor the chatrooms, users enter the chatrooms solely at their own risk." The one exception they name is that rooms promoting illegal content get blocked.

Neither its terms nor its privacy policy states a minimum age anywhere (checked 27 August 2026). Meanwhile the suggestions in its own room search lean toward roleplay and fandoms: roleplay, anime, Undertale, Hetalia, Pokémon.

And the product looks frozen. The footer stops at "© 2001-2023", the homepage text is nearly word for word what it was in 2003, and it still links to 2000s freebie sites.

What Veilr's text chat does

It pairs you up. Pick text and press ‘Start text chat’. There's no room to create and no link to send; Veilr matches you with a partner, one-to-one. A text chat stays text for good, so nobody asks for your camera.

You get a say in who. Once your own gender is set, choose who you'd like to talk to; it costs nothing. Veilr goes looking for that first whenever such a person is online; if there's nobody, it pairs you with someone else so you're not left sitting there. The other side's wishes count too. Boost makes the choice strict and gets you ahead in the queue.

Your partner doesn't need your language. Chatzy promises to work in any language, which helps when a whole room shares one. Veilr translates between the two of you instead: you write in yours, your partner can read it in theirs, and the original is a tap away. A free account starts with a stock of translations and earns more; with Boost there's no limit.

A good conversation can be kept. Tap ‘Add to contacts’ while you're chatting, or on the panel after the chat ends, where it goes out as a request your partner can accept later. Only when you've both added each other does it become a contact. Then the conversation moves into a private chat with replies, reactions and edits, photos stripped of their metadata, and a timer that can clear it all after a day, a week or a month. Both of you also get the other's display name and account email at that point. Nobody can search for you by name, and a request can only come from someone you've just been talking to.

Adults only, with a way out of a bad chat. Chatzy states no minimum age. Veilr is 18+, and an account recorded as younger is never matched. You sign in with an account you already have, and the first time you give your name, gender, date of birth and native language. If a chat turns bad, report it: you're sent on to a new partner, and that person can't be matched with you for a day. A block, if you add one, works in both directions.

No subscription. Chatzy's Premium runs for 3, 6 or 12 months. Veilr's text, voice and video are free, and the two paid extras, Boost and caption minutes, are single purchases.

Chatzy next to Veilr

The first two rows go to Chatzy without a contest. For a chat with people you already know, it's quicker than anything with a sign-in, and it's free up to ten of you. Veilr is for the other case: you don't know who you want to talk to yet, and you'd like to keep them if it goes well.

Your first text chat on Veilr

1. 1. Sign in, and answer the four profile questions the first time.
2. 2. Choose text and press ‘Start text chat’.

Related

• Every comparison in one place
• Chatib — public text rooms by topic and country.
• Emerald Chat — one-to-one text plus group rooms.
• Chitchat — text with no account, filters on a subscription.
• Text chat — this page's format.
• Voice chat — talk instead, with captions across languages.

Questions about Chatzy

Is Chatzy free?

Creating a room, inviting people and chatting are. Premium costs $10 for three months, $15 for six or $24 for a year, and removes the ten-person cap, the timeouts and the ad. Veilr's text chat is free, and nothing on it is a subscription.

Does Chatzy have video or voice?

No. Its FAQ says webcams aren't supported, and there's no voice. Veilr has all three, and on calls between people with different declared native languages, captions can switch on automatically; a new account gets five minutes of them free.

Can I make a private room for my friends on Veilr?

No. Every Veilr chat is two people, and a contact comes from a chat you've both had. For a room with friends, Chatzy does it for free.

Is Chatzy moderated?

By its own rules, no. It says it doesn't monitor rooms and that people enter at their own risk; it blocks rooms that promote illegal content.

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