JanitorAI's free tier runs on a third-party DeepSeek proxy that hits rate limits constantly. When you see "proxy error," "rate limit," or the chat just hangs, here's what's actually happening and what to do — including the alternatives that don't have this problem.
Most of the time, no. The platform itself is up — what's down is the third-party DeepSeek proxy that powers the free tier. Janitor doesn't ship its own model. It routes free-tier chats through a community-maintained proxy that hits rate limits whenever traffic spikes.
If you can load janitorai.com and the character library renders but chat fails with "proxy error" or hangs, the proxy is the problem, not the site.
These are the errors you'll see most often, mapped to root causes.
| Error | What it means | Quick fix |
|---|---|---|
| Proxy error | Free-tier DeepSeek proxy hit a rate limit | Wait 1-5 min, retry. Or switch to BYOA. |
| Rate limit exceeded | Same — proxy throttled | Same. Or upgrade to OpenRouter. |
| Chat hangs / no response | Proxy timeout or model overload | Refresh tab. If persists, switch model. |
| Cloudflare error 5xx | Janitor's actual servers struggling | Wait — usually resolves in minutes. |
| Character won't load | Cache issue or character deleted | Hard refresh (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+R). |
| Login fails | Auth backend issue or your session expired | Clear cookies for janitorai.com, log in again. |
The free-tier proxy is the bottleneck. JanitorAI supports bring-your-own-API setups through OpenRouter or direct DeepSeek API. Costs roughly $5-15/mo depending on usage. The trade-off: you skip the proxy errors, but you're now paying twice (the platform plus the API) for what most alternatives bundle into one subscription.
The cleaner fix is migrating to a platform that ships its own model. CrushOn AI, SpicyChat, Joyland — none of them route through a community proxy. No rate limits, no setup.
If you're hitting proxy errors several times a week, your bring-your-own-API bill keeps creeping up, or the recent ID verification rollout has you reconsidering — the migration cost is genuinely low. Most ex-Janitor users we've talked to migrated in an afternoon.
The 6 alternatives we tested all ship their own models. No proxy errors, no rate-limit roulette, no waiting on community-maintained infrastructure to come back up.
The free tier runs on a community-maintained DeepSeek proxy that hits rate limits when traffic spikes. The platform itself is usually fine — the proxy is the bottleneck.
Wait 1-5 minutes and retry, switch to a different model in your settings, or switch to bring-your-own-API with OpenRouter ($5+/mo). Permanent fix: migrate to a platform that ships its own model.
No. It's still operational. Most 'down' reports trace to proxy errors on the free tier, not platform outages.
CrushOn AI ships its own model — no proxy, no rate limits. Closest one-to-one Janitor replacement and the alternative we send most refugees to first.
There's no official status page. The Discord server and subreddit are the fastest sources of real-time outage info.
Most "JanitorAI down" reports trace to the free-tier proxy hitting rate limits, not to a platform outage. The fix is either bring-your-own-API (paying twice) or migrating to a platform that ships its own model. CrushOn AI is the alternative most ex-Janitor users end up on for exactly this reason.