Ellydee
Ellydee is a privacy-first AI chat platform built on three pillars: privacy by design with encryption and no data harvesting, sustainable AI powered by renewable-energy Finnish data centers with eco-mode on by default, and an acceptance-first dialogue style that engages ideas instead of refusing them. It is free to start with no credit card, offers iOS and Android apps, and supports its mission through plans from $5 per month.
What is Ellydee?
Ellydee is an AI chat platform whose tagline is your thoughts, thoughtfully powered, with privacy-first AI designed to conserve energy and protect liberty. Its philosophy statement is that technology should serve human dignity, not erode it, and it markets itself as an escape from what it calls the Silicon Valley surveillance machine. Privacy by design means Ellydee never harvests, logs, or analyzes your queries for advertising or surveillance, conversations are private by default, and it offers advanced data retention controls; a comparison table shows Ellydee offering never training on user chats, retention controls, chat encryption, an ad-free business model, eco-mode, and defense-contractor exclusion where competitors such as Claude, Gemini, Copilot, OpenAI, and DeepSeek do not. The encryption is described as Proton-grade because it uses the same technology as ProtonMail, XChaCha20-Poly1305 with Argon2id, though Ellydee is not affiliated with ProtonMail and describes itself as a Proton Foundation supporter. On sustainability, Ellydee says its architecture is more powerful yet less power-hungry, using chat compression and renewable energy, with Finnish data centers powered by 100 percent renewable energy and a goal of fully sustainable energy for every user by January 2027; users can enable eco-mode to route requests to those centers, and there is an Environmental Impact Dashboard plus a 1% for the Planet pledge and a Stripe Climate partnership at 1.5 percent of transactions. The accepting dialogue pillar means ideas are explored without judgment, with understanding coming from engagement rather than redirection. Ellydee is also an EFF sponsor, available as web, iOS, and Android apps, and funded through a free-to-start tier plus paid plans called Mission, Plus, and Pro that add text tokens, images, videos, and context features. The company has US addresses in Petaluma, California, and Sheridan, Wyoming, and an active Discord community. The site invites users to come hang out with us on an open, welcoming Discord community where no account is required to lurk, and positions itself as an escape from surveillance capitalism for people who care about digital rights and cognitive liberty.
Ellydee Core Features
Privacy by design
Conversations stay private by default and queries are never harvested, logged, or analyzed for advertising or surveillance.
Proton-grade encryption
Uses the same XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2id technology as ProtonMail, with no affiliation to Proton itself.
No training on your chats
Ellydee never uses user conversations to train AI models, per its comparison table.
Eco-mode renewable hosting
Finnish data centers run 100 percent renewable, with full sustainability targeted by January 2027.
Environmental Impact Dashboard
Track the footprint of your AI usage alongside chat compression that cuts power consumption.
Acceptance-first dialogue
Explore ideas without judgment, with engagement and understanding replacing refusal and redirection.
Defense-contractor exclusion
A feature to block defense-contractor inference providers from handling your requests.
Multi-platform apps
Available on the web plus native iOS and Android apps so conversations travel with you.
Who is Ellydee for?
Ellydee is built for people who are uncomfortable with the data practices of mainstream AI assistants and want an alternative they can trust. The site says it is for thinkers, explorers, writers, and creators, and claims thousands of them have switched from big-tech chatbots to something more ethical, sustainable, and private. Journalists, researchers, and writers who handle sensitive topics are a natural fit, because Ellydee promises not to harvest, log, or analyze queries for advertising or surveillance, and never to use conversations to train AI models. Privacy-conscious professionals and activists will appreciate the advanced data retention controls, the chat encryption that uses the same XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2id technology as ProtonMail, and the feature to exclude defense-contractor inference providers. Users who are frustrated by chatbot refusals and redirection will like the acceptance-first dialogue philosophy: Ellydee says it engages with ideas rather than shutting them down, which appeals to people exploring controversial or simply unusual questions. Environmentally minded users form another clear audience: eco-mode is enabled by default, requests are routed to Finnish data centers powered by 100 percent renewable energy, the company pledges 1 percent of revenue to environmental nonprofits through 1% for the Planet, and 1.5 percent of every transaction funds carbon removal through Stripe Climate. Teams and individuals who want an ad-free assistant with advanced privacy controls, a sustainability dashboard, and mobile apps on iOS and Android will all find something relevant, whether they need the free tier or a paid plan for more tokens, images, and video generations.
Ellydee Use Cases
Chat privately about sensitive or personal topics without fear of harvesting or surveillance.
Explore unconventional ideas and questions that other chatbots routinely refuse or redirect.
Reduce the carbon footprint of everyday AI use with eco-mode and renewable Finnish hosting.
Keep conversations synchronized across web, iOS, and Android devices on the move.
Exclude defense-contractor AI inference providers when handling sensitive professional work.
Generate images and short videos within your plan's daily allowances for creative projects.
Monitor your environmental impact through the dashboard and chat-compression features.
Support ethical AI by funding the EFF, 1% for the Planet, and Stripe Climate through usage.
Ellydee Pros and Cons
Pros
- Strong privacy posture: no ad tracking, no training on chats, retention controls, and Proton-grade encryption.
- Genuine sustainability features with measurable commitments such as 1% for the Planet and Stripe Climate.
- Acceptance-first dialogue offers an alternative to the refusal-heavy style of mainstream assistants.
- Free to start with no credit card, plus native iOS and Android apps.
Cons
- Paid plans have modest daily limits (for example 20 images per day on Mission) that heavy users will outgrow.
- The ethical and political branding (defense-contractor blocking, anti-big-tech messaging) will not suit every team.
- A smaller, younger platform than the big assistants, so model ecosystem and integrations are more limited.
FAQ About Ellydee
Ellydee Pricing
Ellydee is free to start with no credit card, then paid plans from about $5 per month (Mission, $4 per month billed annually), with Plus at $7 and Pro at $16 per month billed annually.
Check official pricingFree
Free to start, no credit card required; access the privacy-first chat experience with default eco-mode.
Mission
Promoted at $5 per month, or $4 per month billed annually; 20 images/day, 1 video/day, 100,000 text tokens, early feature access, 3 character/project contexts, advanced privacy controls.
Plus
Everything in Mission plus 250,000 text tokens, 60 images/day, 10 videos/day, 10 character/project contexts, custom characters, and 50MB document uploads.
Pro
Everything in Plus plus 750,000 text tokens, 100 images/day, 25 videos/day, 50 contexts, and Image Studio (beta).
Ellydee Alternatives
Mistral AI
Mistral AI is a French frontier AI company that helps organizations build tailored AI systems. Its platform spans Vibe, an AI agent for long-horizon work; Vibe for code; Studio for building and running agents and apps; Forge for training custom models; and Compute, frontier-scale infrastructure for training and inference. Models can be self-hosted, run on Mistral's EU cloud, or accessed through cloud partners.
Venice AI
Venice is a privacy-first AI platform giving unrestricted access to leading AI models across text, image, video, code, and audio generation. Prompts and responses stay in your browser rather than on Venice servers, with anonymized, private, TEE, and end-to-end encrypted modes. A free tier is available, and paid plans add unlimited text prompts, more credits, and higher API limits.
LM Studio
LM Studio downloads and runs open-weight language models on your own machine using llama.cpp and MLX. Its Bionic agent creates and edits documents, writes code, automates tasks, and transcribes speech locally. Free users run offline models; paid plans add US-hosted open models such as Kimi K3, GLM 5.3, and DeepSeek V4 Flash with zero data retention.