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# Introduction
ChatGPT is my go-to software. I exploit it on daily basis for analysis, drafting, brainstorming concepts, and even debugging code. It’s quick, dependable, and surprisingly efficient at understanding context. Moreover, it comes with quite a lot of options that make my workflow really feel easy.
Nevertheless, ChatGPT isn’t the one glorious AI assistant out there. On this article, I’ll discover seven highly effective options to ChatGPT that you should use without cost. A few of these instruments I presently use, whereas others I’ve examined up to now. My rankings and proposals are based mostly on private expertise, together with suggestions from actual customers and the options of every product.
# 1. Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft Copilot is likely one of the most polished free options to ChatGPT. It supplies almost all of the options that ChatGPT affords, as Microsoft and OpenAI have an settlement for shared fashions and know-how.
What makes Copilot stand out is its visible and sensible method. As a substitute of simply offering textual content solutions, it usually contains pictures, charts, carousels, movies, or formatted playing cards. Whether or not you are planning dinner, researching a subject, or evaluating tech merchandise, the responses are grounded in actual net information fairly than simply generic summaries.


Key Options
- Visible Solutions: Get outcomes that embrace pictures, movies, tables, and playing cards for matters like journey concepts, meals locations, sports activities scores, and climate updates
- File Uploads: Add PDFs, Phrase paperwork, and Excel recordsdata for immediate summaries, rewrites, or explanations
- Picture Era: Create AI pictures immediately in Copilot, which is nice for social media posts, thumbnails, and design brainstorming
- Mini Podcasts: Generate fast, customized audio content material in a podcast model on matters you have an interest in
- Reminiscence Controls: Management what Copilot remembers about you, and you may clear or replace this info anytime
- Quiz Builder: Request Copilot to create a quiz, and it may be immediately changed into a shareable Microsoft Types quiz
- Join Your Apps: Pull information from Google Drive, Gmail, Docs, OneDrive, Outlook, and extra, when extensions are enabled
# 2. Google Gemini
Google Gemini is likely one of the hottest AI assistants out there on Android, iOS, and the online. It’s excellent for on a regular basis duties in addition to extra complicated tasks. You may ask it to assist discover the best restaurant, plan a visit, draft emails, and even create an app.
Gemini is able to producing code, operating it in an interactive setting, and displaying stay previews. The nice factor is that many of those options can be found on the Free tier.


Key Options
- Video Era: Flip easy textual content prompts into high-quality movies in seconds
- Search-Grounded Solutions: Get clear, correct explanations backed by net outcomes, and maintain asking follow-ups till it clicks
- Picture Era: Discover types from anime to grease portray, iterate on brand ideas, and obtain or share immediately
- Gemini Stay (Voice): Brainstorm, observe interviews, and talk about recordsdata or pictures in actual time with voice-first conversations
- Studying Instruments: Construct research plans, create matter summaries and quizzes, and rehearse displays with Gemini Stay
- Google Apps Integration: Join Gmail, Calendar, Maps, YouTube, and Photographs; set alarms, management music, and make hands-free calls
- Interactive Coding Canvas: Write and refine code with inline solutions and side-by-side previews in a dynamic workspace
# 3. Grok Chat
Grok chat is a superb software for end-to-end improvement work, together with debugging, constructing, and testing net functions. It additionally helps pure voice conversations, picture era, and fast doc understanding. I primarily use Grok for coding duties as a result of it’s quick, sensible, and permits for clean iteration.


Key Options
- Deep Reasoning (Grok Assume): Chains steps logically to clarify the “why,” not simply the “what”
- Code Copilot: Suggests fixes, patterns, and snippets throughout languages to hurry up debugging and dev
- Doc Summarizer: Compresses lengthy PDFs and docs into clear takeaways and motion objects
- Grok Voice: Palms-free, pure conversations for brainstorming, evaluations, and fast stand-ups
- Picture Studio: Generates idea artwork, UI mockups, and diagrams straight from textual content prompts
- Agent Handoffs: Routes duties to specialised instruments/brokers and reviews again with outcomes
# 4. You.com
I exploit You.com day by day for its deep analysis characteristic, which helps me perceive the trade, matters, and instruments that I’m going to write down about. It goes by means of 200 net pages and supplies actually good reviews for my analysis. It’s a mannequin hub, that means you’ll be able to entry any top-tier open-source pre-trained fashions for testing or to your workflow.


Key Options
- Mannequin hub: Choose high business & open-source fashions; set per-chat or default
- Brokers: Use ready-made or customized brokers for coding, analysis, writing, and workflows
- Deep, stay search: Multi-step, citation-rich outcomes grounded in present net pages
- Recordsdata Q&A: Add PDFs, docs, sheets, or pictures to summarize, extract, and analyze
- Code help: Generate/refactor code, clarify snippets, and scaffold apps & APIs
- Picture instruments: Create or edit pictures for mockups, posts, and ideas from prompts
- Privateness controls: Handle information retention/sharing; maintain analysis personal or share later
# 5. Qwen Chat
Qwen Chat is Alibaba’s versatile assistant constructed on the Qwen household of open-source and hosted fashions. It’s nice for on a regular basis analysis, multilingual writing, and coding, with robust reasoning, long-context dealing with, and elective software use for search, code execution, and information evaluation.


Key Options
- Deep Analysis: Plans searches, reads sources, and delivers evidence-backed summaries with citations
- Code & Internet Dev: Generates and refactors multi-language code (HTML/CSS/JS/React), explaining design decisions
- Picture Studio: Create, edit, upscale, and restyle pictures—from concepting to fast retouches
- Imaginative and prescient Evaluation: OCR, chart studying, screenshot reasoning, and scene descriptions in a single step
- Doc Summaries: Condenses lengthy recordsdata into crisp takeaways with clear motion objects
- Artifacts: Produces interactive, shareable outputs (code, docs, diagrams) for quick iteration
- Video Drafts: Storyboard or draft quick clips through supported video workflows
# 6. Z.ai Chat
Z.ai Chat supplies fast options and has turn into a necessary software for my improvement and MLOps tasks, particularly with the GLM Coding plan that I exploit day by day. Top-of-the-line options of this net chat software is that it’s free, enabling customers to conduct analysis, code, and construct net functions effortlessly.
Moreover, Z.ai Chat contains built-in options comparable to Internet Search, Deep Assume, and AI Slides, all out there on a beneficiant free tier, making it simple for customers to discover these superior capabilities.


Key Options
- Internet Search: Stay, linked solutions grounded in present net outcomes
- Deep Assume: A deliberate reasoning mode for more durable, multi-step issues
- Design: Auto-create slide decks and fast visible drafts from easy prompts
- Code: Generate/refactor frontend & backend with real-world enhancements and explanations
- Deep Analysis: Plan, search, and synthesize findings through agentic analysis flows
- Visible Understanding : OCR, tables/charts, scene description, and visible Q&A
- Lengthy Context: Work throughout massive recordsdata and prolonged threads with out shedding context
# 7. Kimi Chat
You could be questioning why Kimi Chat is ranked among the many high 7. The current Kimi-K2-Pondering mannequin has damaged all information, turning into the highest open-source mannequin and one of many high three fashions on this planet. Kimi Chat emphasizes high-quality, deliberate reasoning for coding, analysis, and content material creation. Its “pondering” and “analysis” modes learn deeply, join concepts, and supply well-structured solutions. Whereas it could be slower whenever you allow deeper reasoning, the result’s polished and refined output.


Key Options
- Pondering Mode: Multi-step reasoning to untangle complicated issues with clear, traceable logic
- Analysis Mode: Plans searches, reads sources, and synthesizes citation-ready summaries
- OK Laptop (Brokers): Construct light-weight brokers, wire instruments collectively, and deploy easy net apps
- Dev Suite: Generate/refactor/debug net code (HTML/CSS/JS/React) with explanations and previews
- Doc QA: Ingest lengthy PDFs and docs to summarize, extract key factors, and suggest subsequent actions
- AI Slides & Docs: Flip prompts into slide decks and structured paperwork quick
- Immediate Library & Reminiscence: Save reusable prompts and keep context throughout tasks
# Abstract
This information highlights seven free, high-quality options to ChatGPT that you should use for analysis, coding, brainstorming, and inventive work.
Every software has its personal strengths, so the most effective one depends upon what you are attempting to do:
- Microsoft Copilot: Nice for on a regular basis use. It supplies visible, web-grounded solutions with pictures, tables, and charts inbuilt
- Google Gemini: Works seamlessly throughout Android, iOS, and net, with a coding canvas, voice conversations, and picture/video era
- Grok: Robust at reasoning and developer workflows. Superb for debugging, constructing options, and asking “why,” not simply “how”
- You.com: Designed for deep analysis. It searches lots of of pages and synthesizes dependable summaries, with a hub of fashions and brokers to select from
- Qwen Chat: Highly effective open-source household with robust assist for multilingual duties, code, doc evaluation, and picture understanding
- Z.ai Chat: Quick and free for coding, analysis, and displays, supported by GLM fashions and stay net search
- Kimi Chat: Focuses on high-quality “pondering” and analysis modes, producing polished, structured solutions and agentic workflows
Abid Ali Awan (@1abidaliawan) is an authorized information scientist skilled who loves constructing machine studying fashions. Presently, he’s specializing in content material creation and writing technical blogs on machine studying and information science applied sciences. Abid holds a Grasp’s diploma in know-how administration and a bachelor’s diploma in telecommunication engineering. His imaginative and prescient is to construct an AI product utilizing a graph neural community for college kids fighting psychological sickness.
