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Top Picks Ranked

Claude

Our PickFree Tier

Thoughtful AI assistant by Anthropic

4.6

Best-in-class reasoning and analysis

1M token context window (beta)

Smaller ecosystem than ChatGPT

No image generation

#2

ChatGPT

Free Tier

The most popular AI assistant by OpenAI

4.5

Most versatile AI assistant

Huge plugin/GPT ecosystem

Plus plan can feel limited at $20/mo

Pro plan is expensive ($200/mo)

#3

Perplexity

Free Tier

AI-powered answer engine with real-time sources

4.4

Always provides sources/citations

Real-time web search

Less creative than ChatGPT/Claude

Pro searches limited on free plan

#4

Gemini

Free Tier

Google's multimodal AI assistant

4.2

Deep Google Workspace integration

1M token context window

Output quality behind ChatGPT/Claude for some tasks

Image generation less consistent

#5

Grok

Free Tier

Powerful AI by xAI with real-time X data

4.2

Grok 4 Heavy tops Humanity's Last Exam

DeepSearch and Big Brain Mode

SuperGrok is $30/mo (pricier than ChatGPT Plus)

Heavy plan is $300/mo

#6

Mistral Le Chat

Free Tier

European open-source AI with enterprise focus

4.0

Generous free tier

Open-source models

Less capable than GPT-5/Claude on complex tasks

Smaller community

#7

Microsoft Copilot

Free Tier

AI assistant integrated with Microsoft 365

3.8

Free AI access built-in

Built into Windows & Edge

Output quality inconsistent

Less polished than ChatGPT