Looking for a CHANI alternative?
CHANI is an astrology app that says it is made by real astrologers, not AI, with content organised by your rising sign and reflection prompts and rituals alongside it. OrbHeaven is built around the calculation and the calendar, with interpretation written to fit what the engine found.
OrbHeaven vs CHANI
CHANI says it is made by real astrologers rather than AI, and a tool does not replace astrologers you like reading. The useful question here is not which is better but which of the two things you are actually after.
| What is being compared | OrbHeaven | CHANI |
|---|---|---|
| What the content is organised around | Your own chart, and the dated stretches ahead in it | Your rising sign, and the transits ahead for it |
| Whose voice it is | Vesper, a named advisor written by the product, reading what the engine found | Real astrologers, not AI, by its own description; Chani records the weekly readings herself |
| Reflection alongside the reading | Check-ins, intentions and an evening log, kept as your record | Reflection prompts, activities and rituals in the app |
| Free chart tool | The whole chart, free, no account, nothing stored | A free online chart tool for finding your rising sign |
| Calculation method stated on the chart | Yes — astronomy-engine 2.1.19, Placidus, and the exact universal time, printed on the chart | Not published on their site |
| Price, as each publishes it | Free tier that keeps working; Plus is $12 per month or $99/year | $11.99/month or $107.99/year, published on their own support site |
| Free trial | The free tier is permanent, not a trial. Plus has 7 days free on a first subscription | 14 days on monthly or 30 days on annual, for new users, then it converts |
Every CHANI detail above comes from CHANI’s own website or support pages, checked on 24 September 2026. Where a cell says “not published on their site”, we could not find the answer published by the company itself and chose to leave it blank rather than guess. Apps billed through the App Store or Google Play often list their price only in the store, so a missing price is usually just where they put it.
What CHANI does well
It is written by people. By its own description the app is made by real astrologers, not AI, and Chani personally records the weekly readings. That is a different kind of product from generated text: you can follow a person’s reasoning, disagree with it, and notice when it changes. That is not available from a model, ours included.
Organising horoscope content by rising sign is a common astrological approach, because it lets transits be interpreted through the houses of the chart rather than through the sign alone. It also asks more of the reader, since it requires knowing your birth time — which is why a free chart tool is offered just for finding the rising sign, rather than asking only for a birthday.
The workshop, guidebook and podcast around the app mean the astrology arrives in more than one form. CHANI also publishes its price on its own website — $11.99 a month or $107.99 a year. Of the five products compared in this set, it is the only one whose subscription price we have found on its own website.
How OrbHeaven approaches astrology
We make a different kind of product: rather than offering astrology written by people, OrbHeaven tries to make its calculations checkable. The positions come from an open astronomical engine running locally, and every chart states the engine, its version, the house system, the node convention and the exact universal time it was cast for. Birth times are converted with the historical time zone rules for that place, and a birth time the clocks repeated or skipped is asked about, not guessed. Clock times are converted using the international time zone database. Historical timezone records are strongest from 1970 onward; earlier records can be less certain, particularly where local clocks differed from a region’s recorded standard.
The interpretation is written by a language model, and that is stated rather than implied. It is handed the numbers and asked to read them; it never works out where a planet was. The point of separating the two so firmly is that you can accept the arithmetic and still argue with the reading, which is the normal relationship a thinking person should have with an interpretation.
The reflective side is real but differently rooted. Check-ins, intentions and an evening log exist, and rituals are chosen because a particular stretch is actually running in your chart rather than because it is Tuesday. When a flagged period has passed, the product comes back and asks how it went, and keeps what you said.
None of this is offered as prediction. What can be calculated in advance is when a geometry is exact, not what will happen to you, and the how-it-works page draws that line explicitly.
The differences that actually matter
Astrologers’ writing, or a shown method
This is the whole comparison in one line. CHANI offers astrology written by people. OrbHeaven offers you the working, with the interpretation written by a model and labelled that way. If what you want is a person’s perspective, that is not what OrbHeaven provides.
Rising sign, or the whole chart
Content organised by rising sign is shared by everyone with that Ascendant. OrbHeaven works from your specific placements, which means more of it is yours alone — and also that there is more of it, which is not automatically a virtue.
What free means
CHANI’s pricing page describes a trial for new users that converts to a subscription; it does not describe a permanent free tier. OrbHeaven’s free tier is permanent — the full chart, the daily brief, a monthly allowance of questions and draws, and the record itself, with no expiry and no card. The chart at /birth-chart needs no account at all.
What happens after the period passes
We have not found a counterpart to this in the other products compared here. OrbHeaven asks how a flagged stretch actually went and keeps the answer, so over months you build something you can check the astrology against. That is a slow benefit and worth nothing in week one.
Who might prefer CHANI
- You want astrology from people whose thinking you can follow and disagree with.
- You would rather read writing by a person than writing produced by a model, however it is labelled.
- Workshops, a guidebook and a podcast suit how you take things in.
- A company’s values matter to you: CHANI describes itself as queer, feminist-led, anti-AI and not VC-funded.
Who might prefer OrbHeaven
- You want to see the conventions behind a placement rather than take it on authority.
- You want dated stretches for a decision you are actually in the middle of.
- You want a permanent free tier rather than a trial that turns into a subscription.
- You want a record of whether any of it corresponded to anything, kept over months.
What are the alternatives to CHANI?
People look beyond CHANI for different reasons, so these products are listed by what you might want rather than ranked. We make the last one, so weigh that entry accordingly.
The Pattern
If you want the focus on your personality and your relationships. The Pattern describes itself as a personalised astrology app that helps you understand the patterns shaping your life and influencing your relationships, with features it calls Your Pattern, Your Bonds and Your Transits. It is on iOS and Android, and offers a free natal chart.
TimePassages
If you want more of your own chart in an app, still written by people. TimePassages, from AstroGraph Software, covers birth charts, transits, progressions and chart comparison, and its maker says every interpretation is written by experienced astrologers. It runs on iPhone and Android as well as Windows and macOS, and a free account includes the basics of a birth chart.
Sanctuary
If you want a live, one-to-one reading with a person. Sanctuary’s app offers live, on-demand readings by text or voice with astrologers, tarot readers and psychics, alongside daily horoscopes and an interactive birth chart. Readings are paid for by the minute, at rates its website lists.
OrbHeaven
If you want to see how a chart was calculated, and keep a record. OrbHeaven is ours. Its interpretations are written by a language model from what its engine calculated, and labelled that way, so it is not a substitute for an astrologer you want to hear from. Every chart prints the engine and version, the house system, the node convention and the exact universal time it used; it sets out dated stretches ahead, each with a beginning, a peak and an end; and its free tier is permanent.
If you want chart tools in a browser rather than an app, there are comparisons with Astro.com and Astro-Seek. For the wider field, organised by what you want, there is a round-up of astrology apps and platforms, and every comparison we have written is collected in one place.
Sources for this section
What this section says about each product comes from that company’s own website or its own App Store listing, read on 6 October 2026. Nothing here is taken from a review site.
- The Pattern’s website — how it describes itself, its named features, iOS and Android, the free natal chart
- AstroGraph Software’s website — what TimePassages covers, and its platforms
- TimePassages for iPhone and Android — interpretations by experienced astrologers, and what a free account includes
- Sanctuary’s App Store listing — live readings by text or voice with astrologers, tarot readers and psychics; horoscopes; the birth chart
- Sanctuary’s website — readings paid by the minute, and its rates
Questions people ask
Is OrbHeaven a CHANI alternative?
Only partly, and it is worth being clear about why. A large part of what CHANI offers is astrology from people: by its own description the app is made by real astrologers, not AI, Chani personally records the weekly readings, and there is a workshop, a guidebook and a podcast. OrbHeaven does not have a human astrologer behind the interpretations, and nothing we build will replace wanting to hear from a specific person you trust. Where we do overlap is the chart, the timing and the reflective practice around it.
Is the writing done by a person?
No, and we say so everywhere rather than leaving it ambiguous. OrbHeaven's interpretations are written by a language model working from what the astronomical engine computed. The engine does the arithmetic; the model never calculates a position, only reads one. CHANI describes its app as made by real astrologers, not AI, which is a genuinely different product.
How is the content organised on each?
CHANI organises horoscope content by your rising sign and the transits ahead for it. OrbHeaven organises around your specific chart rather than your rising sign alone, and presents periods ahead with the date each one starts building, the day it is exact and when it eases.
What does each one cost?
CHANI publishes its pricing on its own support site: $11.99 a month or $107.99 a year, which their page describes as 25% off the monthly cost, with a 14-day trial on monthly or 30 days on annual for new users, converting to paid automatically afterwards. OrbHeaven is $12 a month or $99 a year for Plus, and its free tier is permanent rather than a trial — it does not convert into anything.
Does OrbHeaven include reflection prompts or rituals?
Something close. There are check-ins, intentions and an evening log, and rituals chosen against what is actually happening in your chart rather than offered on a schedule. The difference from CHANI's is that ours are tied to the calculation — a ritual appears because a particular stretch is running — and that what you write into them is kept as your record and read back to you later.
Can I try either without paying?
OrbHeaven's full birth chart is free with no account at all, and the free tier beyond that is permanent. CHANI's pricing page describes trials for new users that convert to a paid subscription, and a free online chart tool for finding your rising sign, but does not describe a permanent free tier.
Sources checked
Everything this page says about CHANI comes from CHANI’s own pages, read on 6 October 2026. Nothing here is taken from a review site.
- CHANI’s App Store listing — made by real astrologers, not AI; the weekly readings Chani records; how the company describes itself
- CHANI’s website — the rising-sign approach, the app’s reflection features and the free chart tool
- CHANI’s app pricing page — the monthly and annual prices, and the trial terms
See your own chart, free
Every placement, house and aspect, with the engine, house system and exact universal time printed underneath. No account, no email address, and nothing you type is kept.
No account, no email address, and nothing you type is kept.