Monkey was always a slightly strange product. It launched in 2016 as basically a Snapchat add-on — it required a Snap account to start — and it built its identity around the 15-second video match. You’d get paired with a stranger, you’d have a quarter of a minute to decide if you wanted to add 15 seconds more, and most of the time you’d either add or move on. That timer was the entire UX hook.
The 15-second mechanic genuinely worked at one thing: lowering the social cost of dipping out. A bad match was 15 seconds of your life and then a clean exit. No awkwardness. No long goodbyes. People who wouldn’t use Omegle would use Monkey because they could nope out without it feeling like a thing.
What didn’t work was the bit downstream. Snap eventually pulled the Snap Kit integration that the whole signup depended on. Apple removed Monkey from the App Store twice over content concerns. The platform pivoted multiple times, the user base churned, and what was left was no longer the original product. By 2024 most people who’d used it had moved on.
If you’re looking for a Monkey alternative, the question is which Monkey. The 15-second cap was the most lovable bit, and not many platforms reproduce it — XES doesn’t have a hard timer, though the skip button is one tap away and most early-stage calls end in the first thirty seconds anyway, which functionally is the same thing.
The bit that doesn’t need replicating is the Snap-coupled identity. XES’s guest mode lets you start a call without a signup of any kind — you tick a few consent boxes, pick your gender, and you’re in the queue. The friend graph happens later if you want it. The advantage over Monkey is that none of it depends on a third-party platform that can pull the rug whenever it feels like.
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