LivU alternative: choose who you meet without spending coins
LivU is a big, well-kept app. When we checked on 27 August 2026 it had more than 50 million installs on Google Play (69,839,087 to be exact), a rating of 4.3 from 422,000 reviews, and an update two days old. It connects you to a stranger's camera, with beauty filters, gifts and translated chat, and every video chat opens blurred. What costs money is the part about who. Its store description says optional purchases unlock premium features that give you more control over who you can meet. On Veilr that choice is free, and there's a voice mode as well. The video window up top is Veilr's.
What LivU gets right
The blur is a good idea, and a rare one in random video. LivU's own words are "All video chats start with a blurring filter for your safety."
Its privacy policy, dated 12 June 2026, also says it checks age through Yoti when an account is created, up to comparing an uploaded photo with the profile photo by face recognition. Which countries that applies in, the policy doesn't say. It's still more than Veilr does today: we ask for your date of birth once, and our servers refuse a match to any account recorded as under 18.
Chat translation has been part of LivU for a long time and works well. Veilr translates messages too, so on that point the two are even.
Where the coins come in
LivU runs on coins. On 27 August 2026 its Google Play listing gave in-app purchases a range of $0.10 to $253.70 per item, one of the highest ceilings in the category. What a coin buys in minutes or matches, LivU doesn't publish anywhere we could confirm, and reviewers give numbers that don't agree, so we leave them out.
The terms of service, last revised on 28 October 2021, add two details. Paid coins are spent before free ones. Coins bought directly from LivU can be refunded within 14 days; purchases through an app store follow that store's rules, and there's no refund for a banned account or a partly used purchase. Veilr's rules on those last two points are much the same.
What an account costs you in data
You can't use LivU without one. You sign up with an email address, a phone number, Google, Apple ID, X or Facebook, and the privacy policy lists what it collects at that point: name, nickname, gender, location, photo and phone number. Its Data safety section on Google Play says device identifiers are shared with third parties, and that personal data and in-app activity are collected.
Veilr needs an account too, but one you already hold, such as Google, so there's no new password to make up. The profile it asks for once has four fields: name, gender, date of birth, native language. On Android it asks for camera, microphone and notification access, never for location, contacts or files; your country comes from your connection rather than GPS.
Where LivU is hard to get
In Turkey, between 20 and 22 August 2025, the regulator BTK blocked 29 dating apps, and LivU was on the list with Azar, Tango, Chamet, Tumile and CuteU. Two criminal courts of peace in Ankara approved the decisions; no official reason was published. We haven't checked whether the block still stands.
On iPhone, we couldn't find LivU in the App Store at all. Searches in eight storefronts returned nothing, and the page for its old app ID answered 404 in the US and Turkey (27 August 2026). When it left, and why, we don't know. LivU still runs on Android and in a browser at livu.me, the site its Play listing names. Watch out for livu.app: that domain isn't LivU's and is up for sale, at $6,499 or $312 a month.
Its age labels don't agree with each other. Google Play marks the app Mature 17+ (PEGI 18 in the Turkish store), while LivU's own terms require users to be 18 or older.
Veilr has a gap of its own: it isn't available in the United Kingdom. There's no App Store app either: iPhone users open Veilr in the browser, Android users can get it from Google Play.
What Veilr adds
A voice mode. LivU's own description lists video calling, video chat and text chat. Veilr has those and a voice chat with no camera at all. When your declared native languages differ, captions in your language can come up on their own during a call. A new account gets five minutes free; after that it's Boost, a top-up or a reward.
A say in who you meet, for free. Fill in your own gender and you can pick who you'd like to talk to. Veilr tries that first whenever somebody like that is online, and otherwise puts you through to someone else so you aren't left waiting. It respects the other person's choice as well. With Boost the choice turns strict, and you're first in line.
Gifts without a shop. You get ten reactions to send for free. There are no coins behind them, no balance, and nobody cashes them out.
A contact you both agree to. ‘Add to contacts’ works during a chat, and after a text or voice chat ends it's on the closing panel as a request that waits for the other person. A contact exists only once you've both added each other; then the chat is kept, and each of you sees the other's display name and account email.
Nothing here is a subscription. Matching costs nothing in video, voice or text; the optional extras are Boost passes and caption minutes, each a single purchase.
LivU and Veilr
| LivU | Veilr | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | 50 million+ installs, 4.3 from 422,000 reviews | Far smaller |
| How a video chat opens | Blurred, for safety | Unblurred |
| Age | Checked through Yoti, per its privacy policy | 18+ by the date of birth you give; under-18 accounts refused a match |
| Choosing who you meet | Premium features, bought with coins | A free preference; strict with Boost |
| Voice-only calls | Not in its feature list | Yes; live captions when your languages differ |
| Gifts | Bought with coins | Ten free reactions |
| iPhone | Not in the App Store; web | Not in the App Store; browser |
Three rows are LivU's, and none of them is small. If a blurred first moment and a third-party age check matter most to you, LivU does more there. Veilr's answer is what the other rows say: the choice of partner costs nothing, and the camera is optional.
Starting on Veilr
- 1. Sign in with an account you already have; the profile questions come once.
- 2. Pick video, or voice if you'd rather not be seen, and press ‘Start video chat’ or ‘Start voice chat’.
- 3. Press ‘Add to contacts’ when you want to talk again.
Related
- Every service we compare
- Azar — on the same Turkish block list, with live captions of its own.
- Chatspin — another big video app with the gender filter on the paid side.
- Thundr — coins there too, sold in packs.
- Voice chat — the camera stays off.
- Video chat — this page's format.
Questions about LivU
Is LivU free?
You can start for free. Control over who you meet comes with premium features paid in coins, and single in-app items go up to $253.70. On Veilr, chatting and choosing a gender are free, and the paid extras are optional.
Is LivU banned in Turkey?
Access was blocked by BTK on 20–22 August 2025, along with 28 other dating apps. We haven't checked whether that has changed since.
Is there a LivU app for iPhone?
We couldn't find one in the App Store in August 2026. LivU has an Android app and a web version at livu.me. Veilr doesn't have one either; on iPhone it works in the browser.
Is livu.app the LivU website?
No. That domain is for sale and doesn't belong to the service. LivU's Play listing names livu.me.
All trademarks and service names on this page belong to their respective owners. Veilr is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any of them.