Best AI assistant: the free tiers decide it, not the $20 ones
The best AI assistant depends on whether you pay. Five tested on real accounts: at $20 they are close, on the free tier the gap runs opposite to the ranks.
ChatGPT vs Grok: 4 prompts, both free tiers, a clear tie
I ran four prompts through ChatGPT free and Grok free. They tied on all four. The real gaps: Plus $20 vs Grok Premium $30, and five free models against none.
Claude alternatives: which Claude are you replacing?
Anthropic sells the chat assistant plus five named products called Claude, and page one answers four different questions. Work out which you mean first.
Claude vs Grok: I ran both on a question Google gets wrong
Claude vs Grok, both run on the same two prompts. Both got the hard question right, but Grok opened 3 vendor pages while Claude cited 9 third-party posts.
ChatGPT Plus vs Pro: three Pro prices and no published multiplier
ChatGPT Plus costs $20; Pro is now $100, $200 or $500 a month. OpenAI dropped the 5x and 20x figures, so here is what each tier still says it buys.
ChatGPT review: the free tier is the story, not the $20 one
A ChatGPT review from a year on the free tier plus one month of Plus. Six rungs from $0 to $500, and ads now run on both the Free and $8 Go tiers.
ChatGPT vs Claude: one writes, one does everything else
ChatGPT vs Claude, from a paid Claude account and a year on ChatGPT free. Both $20, but the free tiers differ far more — and only one generates images.
ChatGPT vs Gemini: the free tier decides this one
ChatGPT vs Gemini, both tested on free accounts. One hands a non-paying user its advanced reasoning model; the other will not let you pick a model at all.
Perplexity alternatives: 7 ranked, 6 tested on one question
The best Perplexity alternatives, tested on one question with a checkable answer. ChatGPT used the newest figure; three free answers began below 2025's rate.
Perplexity vs ChatGPT: we asked both the same question
Same question, same day, both free tiers. One got the facts right and cited them; the other was confidently wrong. Plus the price nobody compares properly.
Perplexity vs Google: same right answers, different sources
Perplexity vs Google, tested side by side on five everyday searches: both got every answer right, so the difference is whose sources you can check.
How to use Google AI Mode, and when an AI Overview is enough
How to use Google AI Mode on desktop, phone and Chrome, tested on a free account: every way in, what the + menu does, and where the sources thin out.