Comparison

Piko Chat vs RELAY

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Piko Chat

Experience a nostalgic chat platform reminiscent of the early internet. Send pixel art notes, private letters, and engage in cozy themed rooms. Customize your profile and express yourself through drawings and reactions without the pressure of endless feeds.

Highlights
  • Send pixel art notes and private letters
  • Engage in themed 'pod' chat rooms
  • React to messages and keep conversations alive
  • Customize profile, status bar, and theme
  • Add optional public pins to a world map
  • No endless feed or influencer focus
Features
Read full description

the internet, but fun again! Piko Chat is a nostalgic social app inspired by the 2000s internet. Customize your profile, send letters, draw pixel art, and meet new people. Join Pods to talk about art, life, internet nostalgia, or whatever you’re into. In Piko Chat you can: - Customize your profile - Send and receive letters - Draw pixel art messages - Join Pods and communities - Reply and react to posts - Meet people from around the world Make your profile yours with themes, pixel avatars, status bars, photos, and more. No algorithmic feed. No AI content. No influencers. Just people making things, talking, and hanging out. If you miss Frutiger Aero, old forums, custom profiles, pixel art, and the old internet, you’ll probably feel at home here. Piko Chat. chat like it’s 2006. Subscription Some features in Piko Chat may require a paid subscription. Pricing, renewal terms, free trial information, and cancellation options are shown in the app before purchase. Privacy Policy https://pikochat.net/privacy Terms of Service https://pikochat.net/terms

About

RELAY

Features
Read full description

RELAY is a chat app that forgets. Every conversation keeps only the messages that fit inside its window. Whatever scrolls past the top corrupts, dissolves and is wiped from the server. Not hidden. Not archived. Gone. If you weren't there, you missed it — the way conversation worked before everything became a permanent record. It looks like an app running inside an operating system that no longer exists. Windows with bevelled edges, a taskbar, a desktop with icons you can drag around, and a chat that behaves like the IRC clients of the late nineties: nicknames in colour, a user list you can call up, channel operators, and slash commands for people who remember them. WHAT'S INSIDE • Public channels and private ones, opened with a channel key • Direct messages • Nicknames that belong to you until you change them • The full IRC hierarchy: owner, admin, operator, half-operator, voice • Commands: /op /kick /nick /query /me /ignore and the rest • A desktop with a paint program, a scores file, and a folder of games THE DESKTOP Because the app pretends to be an operating system, it came with an operating system's furniture. There's a paint program with a spray can. There's a folder with minesweeper, a ski run with something hunting you, solitaire, and a brick breaker with ten levels. There's a file that keeps your high scores — the one thing in RELAY that is allowed to remember. BOOM.EXE Hidden on the desktop is a first-person shooter in the shape of the ones that came on shareware discs. Textured walls, a shotgun, eight demons and a lever that ends the level. Sold separately, once, forever. SEVENTEEN LOOKS Every theme re-tints and re-fonts the entire app — a Windows 9x chat client, an amber terminal, a green phosphor screen, a Workbench desktop, a teletext page, a 1-bit black and white machine that turns the games monochrome too. Two are free. The rest, and the wallpapers, can be bought one at a time or all at once. WHAT'S FREE, WHAT'S NOT RELAY is free to download, and everything you need to chat is included: public and private channels, direct messages, all four base games, two themes and the default look. The following are optional, one-time in-app purchases — never required to use the app: - Extra themes (16 more), one at a time or all at once in a bundle - Extra wallpapers and screen savers - BOOM.EXE, the shooter No subscriptions. Anything you buy is yours forever. PRIVACY, NOT AS A FEATURE BUT AS A SHAPE You sign in with Apple and we never ask for your name or your email. Your profile is a nickname. Your messages delete themselves. There is no advertising, no analytics, and nothing to sell, because there is nothing kept. It's a chat room. It's the size of a window. Then it's gone.

Screenshots

Piko Chat4 screens
RELAY4 screens

Verdict

The call

Piko Chat and RELAY are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Piko Chat sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per 7 days and RELAY sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Piko Chat versus RELAY: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPiko ChatRELAY
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (2.9K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews88.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.9K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size76 MB19 MB
Age rating12+17+
DeveloperEbonnee AlmeidaMiguel Vilhena

In-app purchases

12 purchases

Piko Chat

Subscriptions7
  • Piko Plus Weekly$6.997 Days
  • Piko Plus Weekly$7.997 Days
  • Piko Plus Monthly$9.991 Month
Show 4 more
  • Piko Plus Yearly Offer$19.991 Year
  • Piko Plus Yearly Supporter$24.991 Year
  • Piko Plus Yearly$29.991 Year
  • Piko Plus Yearly7 Days trial$39.991 Year
One-time5
  • 100 Piko Coins$1.99
  • 300 Piko Coins$4.99
  • 600 Piko Coins$8.99
Show 2 more
  • Piko Coins$19.99
  • Piko Coins$99.99
10 purchases

RELAY

One-time10
  • Navy Wallpaper$0.99
  • Custom Photo Wallpaper$0.99
  • Diagonal Pattern$0.99
Show 7 more
  • Grid Pattern$0.99
  • Noise Pattern$0.99
  • Tiles Pattern$0.99
  • Waves Pattern$0.99
  • AQUARIUM Screen Saver$0.99
  • MAZE Screen Saver$0.99
  • PIPES Screen Saver$0.99

Questions

Is Piko Chat free?
Piko Chat is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is RELAY free?
RELAY is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Piko Chat or RELAY have ads?
Neither Piko Chat nor RELAY shows ads.

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