Dex, Clay and Monica Alternatives:
Which Personal CRM Fits If You Don’t Want Keep-in-Touch Reminders

Search for a Dex or Monica alternative and you’ll mostly find lists written by the apps themselves. This is one too: I make OldMate, so read it with that in mind. What I’ve tried to do differently is check every fact about the other apps on their own websites, give the date, and say plainly where each one does something OldMate doesn’t.

The question this piece answers is narrow. If you want a place to keep what people tell you, but you don’t want an app telling you when to get in touch, which one fits? If you do want keep-in-touch reminders, several of these are better choices than OldMate, and I’ll say which.

First, Clay is now Mesh

Clay, the personal CRM at clay.earth, now goes by Mesh. The old address redirects to me.sh, and Mesh’s own story page refers to “Clay (now Mesh)”. Everything below about Clay is about Mesh as it stands today.

One more name you may see in older lists: UpHabit. Its website says its personal CRM apps were removed on 9 April 2026; the phone apps keep working, and it asks people to export their contacts. It’s not in the table.

The comparison

Each row comes from the company’s own website, read on 4 October 2026. Prices are as each page showed them that day, in the currency it showed. Features and prices change, so check before you decide.

The table doesn’t say which is quickest to use day to day. That needs a timed test with a stated method, and I haven’t published one.

Who each one suits

Dex: if you want your whole network in one place

Dex is built around pulling people in from where they already are, LinkedIn above all, and then helping you keep in touch: reminders, birthdays, and where you left off. If most of the people you want to keep up with are professional contacts, and you’d like the app to do the remembering-to-call part, Dex does far more of that than OldMate. It also runs on more places, including a desktop app and a browser extension. The trade-off is that synced profiles hold the professional surface; the human detail is still what you add yourself, by typing or by voice.

Mesh (formerly Clay): if you want it to build itself, for free

Mesh’s strength is that it fills itself in. It imports people from your email, calendar and social accounts, keeps their details current and shows you when someone changes jobs or turns up in the news. Its Personal plan is free up to 1,000 contacts, and it has team plans if colleagues need to share. If you want a self-updating address book with reconnect prompts, start here.

Monica: if you want to own it outright

Monica is open source, and you can run it on your own server for nothing beyond the hosting. Its records are yours to shape, it exports your data, and its site promises no “engagement” notifications. It does have reminders, but they’re ones you set, not ones it decides on. For anyone who wants full control, or likes the idea of reading the code, Monica is the better choice. Its site says a rebuilt version is due before the end of 2026, with native iPhone and Android apps after that; today it’s a web app that works on a phone.

Covve: if you meet people at events and work in a sales CRM

Covve’s site leads with business cards, and that’s where it’s strongest: scanning cards and event badges, adding notes, and passing leads to Salesforce, HubSpot and other business CRMs. Its personal CRM adds smart reminders and news about your contacts. If you go to a lot of conferences and your contacts need to end up in a company CRM, Covve does a job OldMate doesn’t try to.

OldMate: if you want what people told you, ready for next time

The other apps here start from a contact list. OldMate starts from the conversation, because that’s where the details that matter come from: the new job, the kid’s first term, the thing you promised to send. It’s built for the minute after a catch-up. Tap +, say a few lines on the walk back to the car, and who, where, what’s new and any promise fill in beside your words as you speak. Tap a detail to fix the words it came from, check it, and save. It all lands on that person’s page, with your transcript and the recording behind it.

Then it’s built for the minute before you see them again. Search by name, or by what you noted (“the one training for a marathon”). Read what they told you last time, and see the question you meant to ask. Follow-ups gathers your open promises and chosen questions by person, so you can mark a promise kept or a question asked. And when someone’s on your mind, a short reflection asks a few small things and keeps a few words about what they mean to you.

Because nothing is imported, your list is only the people you’ve actually talked about, not everyone you’ve ever emailed. And because it doesn’t schedule keep-in-touch reminders, it’s yours to open when you want to. It runs on iPhone, Android and in the browser, all on one account.

It isn’t the one for you if you want keep-in-touch reminders, want your LinkedIn network imported, or want a native desktop app (on a computer, OldMate runs in your browser). It uses AI to sort your notes, as the Privacy Policy explains, and it’s a personal tool, not one for a team.

Or no app at all

If what you want is a place for notes and nothing else, a notes app or a spreadsheet costs nothing and asks nothing of you. The catch is the moment after the conversation, when opening the right file feels like admin; there’s more on that in ditch the spreadsheet. If you’d like to try it anyway, here’s a personal CRM template you can copy.

A quick way to choose

• You want keep-in-touch reminders and your network imported: Dex or Mesh.
• You want it free: Mesh’s Personal plan, Monica on your own server, or a notes app.
• You want to own the software and the data: Monica.
• You collect business cards and work in a sales CRM: Covve.
• You want what people told you kept in your words, quick to save after a catch-up and easy to find before the next one: OldMate.

New to all this? Start with what a personal CRM is, and whether you need one. Wondering whether keeping notes on people is a bit much? That’s a fair question. And if you mostly need this for work, there’s a note habit for freelancers and consultants.