7 Best Town AI Alternatives in 2026
The best Town alternative depends on why Town is not the right fit. Pick Carly for multiple specialized, client-facing work agents; Pally for personal messages, calls, and errands; Martin for voice-first delegation; Lindy for a configurable inbox assistant; Dust for a technical team platform; Cassidy for internal company workflows; or Vellum when self-hosting and control matter most.
Town is a capable AI work assistant. Every user gets a “Townie” with an @town.com address that learns from email, calendar, messages, documents, and business apps. It can send email, schedule meetings, research people, prepare briefings, and run custom routines across more than 50 integrations. Town now supports Outlook mail and calendar, so articles that call it Google-only are out of date.
Four head-to-heads cover the usual shortlist: Town vs Martin, Tasklet vs Town, Town vs Cora, and Town vs Tomo.
Reasons to compare alternatives still remain: Town centers everything on one ambient assistant, meters work and routine runs with credits, and trades explicit workflow control for ease of setup. Those are design choices, not defects. The right alternative should fit the operating model you need.
Town and Its Alternatives Compared
| Tool | Best for | Email providers | External assistant identity | Automation model | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Town | One assistant that learns your work | Gmail + Outlook | Yes, one @town.com address | Stock + custom routines | Free; Starter $15/mo |
| Carly | Specialized business agents | Gmail + Outlook / Microsoft 365 | Yes, one email per agent | Visual workflows + agent skills | AI agents from $35/mo |
| Pally | Personal context and errands | Gmail + Outlook + iCloud | On $200 Max | Personal automations + browser actions | Free; Pro $25/mo |
| Martin | Voice-first calendar and inbox help | Gmail + Outlook | Primarily acts through your accounts | Conversational requests | From about $21/mo annually |
| Lindy | Configurable inbox workflows | Gmail + Outlook | Primarily acts through your accounts | Structured agents and approvals | Paid from about $50/mo |
| Dust | Technical internal agents | Connected enterprise sources | Internal assistants | Developer-oriented agent platform | From €29/user/mo |
| Cassidy | Shared company knowledge and workflows | Connected work sources | Internal assistants | Company workflow builder | Free tier; business pricing |
| Vellum | Self-hosted personal AI | Varies by deployment | Configurable | Open-source skills and deployment | Free self-hosted; hosted plans vary |
Pricing changes quickly. These figures were checked against published plan pages on July 30, 2026; verify current terms before buying.
1. Carly: best for specialized work agents
Carly is the best Town alternative when “one assistant that knows everything” is the wrong structure for the business. You can create separate agents for scheduling, lead follow-up, recruiting, billing, or customer operations. Each gets its own name, email address, instructions, memory, and tool access, so it can participate directly in a client, candidate, or vendor thread.
Town and Carly both support Gmail and Outlook, can send email, and can execute work across connected apps. The real distinction is architecture:
- One generalist versus several specialists. Town gives you one Townie. Carly lets each process have a separate agent and permission boundary.
- 260+ native integrations versus 50+. Carly covers a larger set of CRM, support, accounting, marketing, project, file, and communication tools. If an app has a public API, Carly can also connect through your own key.
- Routines versus explicit workflows. Town intentionally makes recurring work conversational. Carly also offers a visual Zapier-style workflow layer when branches, triggers, waits, and deterministic steps need to be visible.
- Different usage economics. Town consumes credits for assistant work and routine runs. Carly’s non-AI workflow steps are free; AI agent plans start at $35/month and have their own usage tiers.
Choose Carly over Town if: several roles should not share one identity; external correspondence is central; or the process needs broader integrations and explicit workflow logic.
Choose Town over Carly if: you want one assistant to infer context across your work with less configuration and its 50+ integrations cover your stack.
2. Pally: best for personal life and messages
Pally lives in iMessage on Apple devices and RCS on Android. It combines personal messages, WhatsApp, email, calendars, tasks, documents, location, and web context; prepares a morning brief; watches conversations; runs automations; and can complete browser errands with approval. Max adds an assistant-owned phone number and email plus outbound calls.
Pally and Town are both ambient assistants, but their context points in different directions. Town goes deeper into work systems such as CRM, project management, analytics, development, and finance. Pally goes deeper into personal communication, relationships, groups, travel, location, calls, and purchases.
Choose Pally over Town if: your missed obligations hide in personal messages and daily-life logistics. Choose Town over Pally if: your assistant needs to understand business projects and operate across a work stack. Read our Pally AI review or full Pally alternatives guide.
3. Martin: best for voice-first delegation
Martin is built around speaking to an assistant. Call it, text it, or message over channels such as WhatsApp and Slack, and ask it to manage your calendar and inbox. Town offers more connected work context and richer recurring routines; Martin offers a more natural voice front door.
Choose Martin over Town if: calendar and email are the job and you want to delegate by voice while moving. Choose Town over Martin if: the assistant should proactively synthesize context across many business apps and recurring routines.
4. Lindy: best for inbox structure and controls
Lindy focuses on inbox triage, reply drafting, scheduling, meeting help, and configurable agents. It supports Gmail and Outlook and gives users more explicit control over how an agent is built and when an action needs approval.
Town learns your patterns and hides much of the machinery. Lindy shows more of it. Neither approach is universally better: low-configuration ambient help favors Town; a carefully shaped inbox process favors Lindy.
Choose Lindy over Town if: you want to configure the assistant and review its actions through a more structured interface. Choose Town over Lindy if: you want an assistant to learn first and ask you to build less.
5. Dust: best for technical internal agents
Dust is an enterprise agent platform for teams that want to build assistants on top of company knowledge and tools. It is not a personal executive assistant in the Town sense. Its value is developer control, shared internal use, model choice, permissions, and company-specific agents.
Choose Dust over Town if: engineering or IT owns the deployment and the assistants are internal company infrastructure. Choose Town over Dust if: an individual wants an assistant working in days, not a platform a technical team must design.
6. Cassidy: best for shared company workflows
Cassidy builds company-specific assistants and automations around knowledge sources and work apps. It fits teams that want repeatable processes and internal context shared across users. Town now has team plans, shared routines, and shared skills, so the comparison is closer than it was at launch.
Choose Cassidy over Town if: the primary asset is a team knowledge base and shared workflow library. Choose Town over Cassidy if: the product should still feel like a personal assistant that learns each person’s work.
7. Vellum: best for self-hosting and control
Vellum positions itself as an open-source personal AI assistant that can run locally or in the cloud. It is the meaningful alternative for buyers whose objection is not features or price, but where their assistant runs and how deeply they can extend it.
The tradeoff is ownership. A hosted Town account is faster to adopt and comes with polished channels and integrations. A self-hosted assistant makes you responsible for deployment, updates, connectors, model costs, and reliability.
Choose Vellum over Town if: local control and extensibility justify operational work. Choose Town over Vellum if: you want a managed assistant rather than another system to maintain.
Where Carly Is Better—and Where Town Is Better
The honest Carly comparison is no longer “Town cannot use Outlook.” It can. The decision now rests on structure and workflow depth.
| Requirement | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One assistant that learns broad work context | Town | The product is organized around one ambient Townie |
| Separate agents for sales, scheduling, recruiting, and finance | Carly | Each role gets its own identity, memory, instructions, and access |
| Minimal setup for common inbox and briefing routines | Town | Stock routines and learned preferences reduce configuration |
| Visible triggers, branches, waits, and deterministic workflow steps | Carly | The visual workflow layer exposes the process |
| More native business integrations | Carly | 260+ native connections versus Town’s 50+ |
| A permanently free personal-assistant trial | Town | Free includes 30 chats, all integrations, and a weekly brief |
| Free, unlimited automation without AI steps | Carly | Non-AI Zapier-style workflow steps run free |
| One assistant-to-assistant identity | Town | Every Townie gets an @town.com address |
| Multiple client-facing assistant identities | Carly | Every Carly agent gets its own email address |
Town Pricing Is Part of the Decision
Town’s free plan includes 30 chats per month, all integrations, its assistant over email and messaging channels, and a weekly briefing. Starter is $15/month with 1,250 credits, daily briefings, inbox help, scheduling, and two custom daily routines. Pro is listed from $49/user/month billed annually with 5,000 credits, unlimited custom routines, and overage. Higher individual tiers list at $99 and $199/month billed annually.
Credits are consumed when Town does work, including chats and routine runs. Pro and higher plans can continue past the included pool at published per-credit rates, and users can set a hard overage cap. This is more transparent than an undefined “fair use” policy, but less predictable than a product where the main workflow steps do not consume usage.
Read the full Town AI review for current plan details and limits.
FAQ
What is the closest alternative to Town?
Carly is closest for delegated business email and workflows. Pally is closest for an ambient assistant across personal context. Martin is closest for voice. The best substitute depends on whether Town’s work context, one-assistant structure, or interaction model is the part you want to replace.
Does Town work with Outlook?
Yes. Town now lists Outlook mail and calendar among its live integrations. Older posts that call Town Google-only are out of date.
Is there a free Town alternative?
Pally has a free plan with three app connections, a daily brief, and three automations. Carly offers free non-AI Zapier-style workflows, with AI agents from $35/month. Vellum can be self-hosted, but infrastructure and model usage still create costs.
Which Town alternative has its own email address?
Every Carly agent has its own email address. Pally adds an assistant-owned email on its $200/month Max plan. Town itself gives every Townie an @town.com address.
Which alternative is best for a team?
Carly fits teams that need several specialized outward-facing agents. Dust and Cassidy fit technical or internal company-assistant deployments. Town now offers team plans with pooled credits, shared workspaces, routines, and skills, so it should remain on the shortlist when one ambient assistant model fits the organization.
Related: Town AI review · Pally vs Town · Pally alternatives · Town vs Lindy · Best AI personal assistants
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