The 15 Best ChatGPT Alternatives in 2024 (Free and Paid)

For many of us, when we think of AI, the first name that comes to mind is ChatGPT.

But ChatGPT is not the only show in town when it comes to generative AI. 

If you have very specific tasks or you’re looking for higher-quality outputs, it’s good to know your options.

That’s why we’ve tested a whole range of ChatGPT alternatives and listed our 16 top picks for you to choose from. 

Why Look for a ChatGPT Alternative?

ChatGPT might be the household name that made AI mainstream, but it’s definitely not the best for some specific use cases. 

Each ChatGPT competitor brings unique features to the table—depending on your needs.

Whether you want high-quality images, expert coding assistance, improved copywriting, or up-to-date research, there are other tools that deliver better results than ChatGPT.

The 15 Best ChatGPT Alternatives to Try in 2024

Here are our top 15 picks for AI alternatives to ChatGPT.

Let’s dig in and discover more about each of these generative AI tools, so you can find the best ChatGPT alternative for your needs in 2024.

1. ContentShake AI: Best for SEO Content and Small Teams

• What does it do?: AI writer for long-form content and SEO
• Who is it for?: Small businesses, marketers, agencies, and content creators who write long-form, SEO-rich content

ContentShake AI is a smart AI writing tool by Semrush.

Combining ChatGPT's AI technology with Semrush's SEO data, it helps you create ready-to-rank content at scale.

With ContentShake AI, you can generate blog articles that resonate with your target audience and boost your search engine rankings at the same time. 

It automatically optimizes them for your target keywords and for search intent insights.

You can add changes and enhancements using its integrated AI chat and a user-friendly blog editor. It’s a much smoother experience compared to copying and pasting text from ChatGPT. 

Finally, the tool helps optimize your draft and spot issues with SEO, readability, and tone of voice. You can then make quick fixes using its AI features.

ContentShake AI is a perfect ChatGPT alternative for small businesses, solopreneurs, and agencies looking to attract leads and build organic traffic.

Top Features

• Suggests weekly content ideas based on what’s trending in your sector
• Creates SEO-rich content and generates engaging social media posts to promote your content
• Analyzes your competitors and real-time Google search results, search intent, and keyword data for higher-performing content
• Lets you publish content directly to WordPress
• Sends your articles to Google Docs so you can easily share them with anyone
• Generates high-quality AI images for free

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Explore ContentShake AI with a seven-day free trial.

After that, get the paid plan for $60/month and enjoy unlimited content creation.

2. Microsoft Copilot (Bing AI): Best for Boosting Productivity

• What does it do?: AI-powered web search and chat
• Who is it for?: Users of Microsoft 365 apps, researchers, and businesses needing enhanced web search and chat

Microsoft Copilot is a chat interface that allows you to search for specific information, generate text, create images, and interact with Microsoft products and services. 

If you’re already using Microsoft 360 tools, this is one of the best alternatives to ChatGPT.

Microsoft built Copilot on top of OpenAI's language models and is continuously upgrading it with more features and capabilities. 

For example, Copilot’s Pro users get access to GPT-4 Turbo for enhanced results and DALL-E 3 for greater accuracy and detail in AI image generation:

Since it’s from Microsoft, Copilot integrates seamlessly with Windows, Bing, Edge, and other Microsoft offerings. 

This means you can interact with Microsoft 365 apps more intuitively, streamlining your workflows and improving productivity.

Source: Microsoft

Top Features

• Offers a choice of response style (More Creative, More Balanced, or More Precise)
• You can select from a range of AI models (GPT-3.5, GPT-4, or GPT-4 Turbo for Copilot Pro subscribers)
• Integrates seamlessly with various Microsoft products and services (e.g., Windows, Bing, Edge)

Pros and Cons

Pricing

The basic plan (which gives you access to Copilot on the web and in Windows, macOS, and iPadOS) comes with a free Microsoft account. Copilot Pro costs $20 per user/month.

3. Llama 3 by Meta: The Best Open Source AI Tool for Research and Commerical Use

• What does it do?: Open source large language model (LLM)
• Who is it for?: Developers, researchers, and businesses to build, experiment, and use AI for various purposes.

Meta AI received a major upgrade with the release of Meta Llama 3, a powerful new large language model or LLM (think super smart AI tool).

It's been trained on massive amounts of text data, making it powerful at understanding and using language.

Llama 3 is designed to be available for almost anyone—be that for research, content creation or commercial purposes.

This sets it apart from other ChatGPT alternatives and AI tools: since it’s not a proprietary model, everyone can access and use it.

Top Features: 

• Llama 3 allows users to download and run it on their own computers or on cloud infrastructures like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services through platforms like Hugging Face

• It’s expected to have approximately 140 billion parameters, making it a powerful tool for various applications—from generating and translating text to conducting research

• It also includes a powerful AI image generator 

Pros and Cons

Pricing:

Llama 3 is an open source model, making it free to download and use for research and commercial purposes.

4. Gemini (Formerly Bard): Best for Integrating with Google’s Ecosystem

• What does it do?: Conversational AI
• Who is it for?: Google Workspace users. Businesses, developers, and users seeking human-like AI interactions.

Google's Gemini, previously known as Google Bard, is an alternative to ChatGPT powered by advanced language models like LaMDA. 

Such models need a lot of information to learn how to use language effectively.

Gemini is trained on 1.56 trillion words — vastly more data than GPT-4's 13 million tokens (single characters, words, or parts of words). 

This gives Gemini the edge in understanding your questions and requests more precisely.

It also offers logical, concise answers fueled by critical thinking. To compare Gemini and ChatGPT, we gave them both the same prompt.

Here’s how Gemini responded: 

ChatGPT’s response, on the other hand, was less well structured and harder to follow: 

We also asked both to write a blog intro, to test their writing quality. Gemini produced engaging copy with fewer cliches.

ChatGPT, however, started with its all-time favorite “In the rapidly evolving world of…” and produced more formal copy that was harder to read.

For an extra bonus, Gemini integrates with Google’s entire ecosystem. 

You can connect it to Google Sheets for enhanced data analysis or automate time-consuming manual tasks by using it with Google Assistant.

Top Features

• A much larger context window (1 million tokens) than ChatGPT’s 32,000 tokens making it better at maintaining context in a longer conversation
• Voice input on mobile and desktop lets you speak your prompts and questions, making for a more conversational experience
• Integrations with Google apps like Gmail, Docs, Drive, and Maps help streamline your workflows

Pros and Cons

Pricing

The free version of Google Gemini is available for all Google Workspace users. 

You can also get a free two-month trial of its Advanced plan, with all its features and capabilities. 

After that, a subscription to Gemini Advanced will cost $19.99/month. 

5. Claude: Best for Nuanced AI Conversations

• What does it do?: Conversational AI
• Who is it for?: Businesses and users looking for sophisticated, context-aware AI conversations

Anthropic’s Claude can chat with you, answer questions, and lend a hand with various tasks. 

But Claude is better than ChatGPT at matching tone of voice and style. 

We gave Claude and ChatGPT the same guidelines and prompt.

Here’s what we got from Claude: 

And this is ChatGPT’s response:

AS you can see, Claude’s output is more informational and follows the given whiteprint, whereas ChatGPT included more weasel words and fluff, which needed some editing.

Claude also has a larger context window, and responds faster with more consistent replies and richer content for creative writing tasks. 

Top Features

• You can easily upload and analyze PDFs, images, and other documents
• You can store your pasted data for easier reference
• The context window of 200k tokens (about 850 pages of text) lets Claude Pro recall large amounts of background information. This helps the AI chatbot better understand your question and give you the most relevant response

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Claude offers a free version. For $20/month, Claude Pro will give you five times more usage . 

API pricing varies based on the Claude model and the number of tokens you’re using. 

6. GitHub’s Copilot: Best for Coding Assistance

• What does it do?: AI coding assistant
• Who is it for?: Developers, programmers, and software engineers

 GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered coding assistant that developers will love. 

While ChatGPT is a powerful general-purpose language model, GitHub Copilot was created specifically for developers. 

It integrates into their workflow to reduce errors and improve overall code quality by handling repetitive tasks and offering context-specific recommendations.

It understands code patterns across different programming languages, so with minimal prompting, you can get relevant completions for entire functions or classes.

Top Features

• You can get personalized, tailored answers with inline citations, based on your organization's knowledge base
• The OpenAI Codex generates context-aware code
• It will offer code completion suggestions as you type and generate suggestions from natural language prompts

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Github Copilot offers three plans: Individual at $10 user/month, Business at $19 user/month, and Enterprise at $39 user/month.

7. Codeium: Best for Code Completion and Generation

• What does it do?: AI coding assistant
• Who is it for?: Developers, programmers, and software engineers

Codeium is another ChatGPT alternative that helps developers write code faster and easier. 

It understands the context you're working in and offers intelligent autocomplete suggestions as you type. 

You can also ask questions in plain English about your codebase or technologies, and it will provide helpful answers and relevant code examples.

It's free, unlimited, and supports over 70 programming languages, making it accessible and versatile for developers at different levels of experience.

Top Features

• With Codeium Live, you can chat with AI that understands your current code and tech stack and can give you accurate, relevant answers and examples
• Use the @ feature to mention and discuss specific functions and classes from your own code
• Codeium Search lets you ask your codebase natural language questions
• Supports more than 70 programming languages, such as Ruby, Javascript, C++, Java, and Python

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Codeium offers a free Individual plan, a Teams plan at $15/seat/month, with custom pricing for the Enterprise plan.

8. Cohere Generate: Best for Customizable AI Models

• What does it do?: AI model customization
• Who is it for?: Developers, businesses, and researchers who need tailored AI models

For enterprise clients, Cohere Generate is a great alternative to ChatGPT.

This powerful, customizable AI platform integrates enterprise data stores, the internet, and specific documents into a powerful, customizable AI platform.

Cohere's Embed 3 is a new embedding model offers increased performance in semantic search and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. 

Think of it as a tool that helps computers better understand the meaning of text. 

For example, it can match search queries to relevant documents, even if those documents contain some confusing or inaccurate information. 

Cohere’s models are great for text generation, classification, and semantic search. You can also use it for research, like this:

Top Features

• Responses use good grounding techniques and accurate citations to reduce hallucinations
• Cohere Playground lets you test large language models (LLMs) without coding
• Cohere offers different model sizes (Command, Command Light, Embed, Embed Light, Embed Multilingual) for various tasks

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Cohere offers a free tier for testing and small-scale projects. 

The Production plan for businesses has token pricing and varies based on the model you choose.

9. OpenAI Playground: Best for Exploring AI Capabilities

• What does it do?: AI experimentation and testing
• Who is it for?: AI enthusiasts, researchers, and developers exploring AI potentialFl

With OpenAI Playground, you can experiment with various GPT models — from OpenAI, including GPT-3 and GPT-4. 

This is great for developers and researchers who want to test and customize the models before integrating them into their applications.

For instance, you could use OpenAI Playground to fine-tune a GPT-3 model for writing specific types of creative content, like poems or movie scripts.

Top Features

• Preset prompts can be saved for future use
• You can edit the Assistant's messages to guide GPT's responses
• Existing uusers say it has faster response times than ChatGPT

Pros and Cons

Pricing

OpenAI Playground offers a pay-as-you-go pricing model based on the number of API calls and the specific GPT model. 

Prices start at $0.0010 per 1,000 tokens for GPT-3.5 models and $0.03 per 1,000 tokens for GPT-4 models. 

For example, ChatGPT-4 Turbo costs $10/1M tokens.

10. Perplexity AI: Best for Research

• What does it do?: AI-powered research assistant
• Who is it for?: Researchers, academics, and students conducting in-depth research

Perplexity AI is one of the best ChatGPT alternatives, combining web search capabilities with advanced AI models, like GPT-4, Claude 2, and its own in-house models.

Because it draws from different live sources and provides source citations, its responses are more up-to-date and accurate than ChatGPT.

Perplexity AI can also access platforms like Reddit, saving you hours of research. Here's an example we tried:

Top Features

• Various search modes, such as Internet, Academic, WolframAlpha, for easy source selection
• Uses LLMs such as GPT-4, Claude 3, Mistral Large, and its own custom models to provide more relevant and informative answers
• Summarizes articles, web pages and access forums for quick information retrieval

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Perplexity offers a free plan with standard features. Perplexity Pro costs $20/month, although a seven-day free trial is available with the yearly subscription plan, which costs $200.

11. Midjourney: Best for Creating AI-Generated Art

• What does it do?: AI art generation
• Who is it for?: Artists, designers, and creatives 

Midjourney is a powerful AI image generator that creates highly realistic and artistic images from textual prompts. 

Accessed through team chat app Discord, it uses prompts via the Midjourney Discord Bot.

Midjourney offers professional designers and artists more customization options than OpenAI’s DALL-E 3. 

It works especially well if you need to create ultra-realistic images. We gave both Midjourney and DALL-E 3 the following prompt:

Prompt: A photo of a gray cat with wings flying in the sky Canon EF 35mm, f1. 8, photography high on details, ultra-realistic, HD, HDR, 8K, real-life --ar 3:2

Here is what Midjourney came up with:

Compare that with DALL-E 3’s effort, which looks more like an illustration:

That said, it will likely take you longer to figure out and learn how to get the most out of Midjourney. 

Top Features

• Creates high-quality, artistic and hyper-realistic images
• Zoom Out and Pan features let you extend images beyond their original boundaries.
• You can combine concepts and aesthetics of multiple images with image prompts and blending.

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Midjourney offers four plans: Basic at $10/month, Standard at $30/month, Pro at $60/month, and Mega at $120/month.

12. Chatsonic: Best for Real-Time Information

• What does it do?: AI-powered search and information retrieval
• Who is it for?: Researchers, students, and professionals needing up-to-date information

Chatsonic is a chat tool from Writesonic that can help you conduct research, create marketing materials, and generate images. 

It integrates with other tools from Writesonic’s suite, such as the AI Article Writer, Audiosonic, and Photosonic. This helps it to provide an all-round solution.

Chatsonic’s real-time information makes it really useful if you want to reference current news in your content. Here’s an example we tried:

Top Features

• Google integration gives you real-time, up-to-date responses
• With support for 24+ languages, you aren’t limited to English-speaking contexts
• Includes a Chrome extension for easy access and content creation on any webpage

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Chatsonic is available on the Chatsonic plan for $15/month.

13. Jasper AI: Best for Enterprise Content Creation

• What does it do?: AI content creation
• Who is it for?: Large enterprises, content teams, and marketers

For larger companies, Jasper AI is a good option for generating content for a wide range of channels, from social media to email.

Unlike ChatGPT, Jasper offers Brand Voice and Knowledge Base features that capture your brand’s style and information, which it refers back to while creating content.

While ChatGPT only has access to OpenAI’s model, Jasper draws from over a dozen models like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.

This means that Jasper is less limited than ChatGPT and is more technically reliable, with 99.95% guaranteed uptime.

Top Features

• Includes Brand Voice memory bank so you can store brand tones and style guidelines
• Supports 30+ languages so you can create localized content for global markets
• Lets you toggle between Speed and Quality for your output

Pros and Cons

Pricing

The Creator plan with one seat costs $49/month. The Pro plan costs $69/month for each seat, and the Business plan offers custom pricing.

14. Pi.ai: Best for Emotional Support

• What does it do?: Conversational AI
• Who is it for?: Individuals seeking emotional support and needing AI for personal use

If you need personal assistance and emotional support with engaging and meaningful conversations, Inflection AI chatbot Pi is the ChatGPT alternative for you. 

It uses advanced natural language processing techniques and deep reinforcement learning to improve its conversational skills over time.

You can ask it any question about life and engage in an interesting conversation:

While ChatGPT can be quite formal and impersonal, Pi.ai is designed to have natural-sounding and empathic responses. . 

This means that Pi.ai can provide a more personalized and friendly conversation experience. 

Here’s how Pi.ai responded to our query about practicing gratitude: 

Top Features

• Integrates with your email, calendar, and social media apps, among others
• The interface is very user-friendly with an appealing minimalist design for text-based interactions
• The engaging questioning style makes for lively and interesting conversations

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Pi is currently completely free. However, Inflection AI might introduce pricing plans or premium features in the future. 

15. Otter: Best for Project Management 

• What does it do?: AI-powered project management
• Who is it for?: Teams, project managers, and professionals engaging with multiple stakeholders

Otter, or Otter AI Chat, combines real-time transcription, collaboration, and content generation features to help you improve team productivity and streamline communications.

You can use it for your team meetings and virtual conferences.

For example, Otter integrates with popular video conferencing platforms and generates automated meeting summaries.

Our favorite out-of-the-box use case? Asking Otter to summarize key takeaways from podcasts. 

Pros and Cons

Top Features

• Collaborative chat lets meeting participants engage and share insights
• Integrates with the most popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet
• Produces automated meeting summaries with action items and hyperlinks to notes

Pricing

Otter offers a free plan with standard features. Otter Pro costs $16.99/month, the Business plan is $30/month, and there’s an Enterprise plan with custom pricing.

Other ChatGPT Alternatives You Can Try

If none of these 15 alternatives to ChatGPT have ticked all your boxes, here’s some other honorable mentions that you might find useful. 

• AnonChatGPT: Chat with this AI tool without having to create an account. It’s based on the GPT-3 model, but offers a different user interface that allows you to start a new conversation by refreshing the page.
• Character.AI: Create and chat with a whole range of customizable AI characters. You can have engaging contextual conversations with tons of AI-powered personas, from fictional characters to historical figures and celebrities.
• Grok AI: Elon Musk's chatbot creates natural and engaging conversations. With Grok, you can summarize website content, translate languages, research and answer questions, and even use a "rebellious streak" to tackle "spicy" topics.
• Meta AI Assistant: Meta’s AI chatbot is a more personalized and conversational alternative to ChatGPT. It integrates with Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Meta's mixed reality devices.

How to Choose a ChatGPT Alternative 

Now that you’ve seen what a spectrum of AI options there are, you don’t have to settle for ChatGPT or tools that ride on its coattails. But how do you narrow down your choices? 

Here are some key factors to consider when selecting the right AI tool for you: 

Innovative vs. Imitative

• Is this tool innovative, or does it offer similar functionalities to ChatGPT? Look for features or applications that make it distinct from the competition.

• Does it rely on the same core technology as ChatGPT, or does it employ a different approach?

Language Models and Architectures

• Does it use established language models like GPT, or BERT, or something else? Each model has its pros and cons, so this can tell you what the tool is good at.

For example, GPT-4 is known for its powerful analytical capabilities, while BERT excels at understanding complex relationships within language. The newly released GPT-4o can also interact with the real world as your digital assistant and comprehend emotional clues.

Bard, on the other hand, leverages a custom neural network architecture designed by Google AI. This allows Bard to adapt its responses to your specific needs and generate different creative text formats.

• Consider the model size and architecture. Larger models, like GPT-3 (175B parameters), have more knowledge and perform better than smaller models, like GPT-2 (1.5B parameters).

Open-Source vs. Closed-Source

Is the code behind the tool open source? That is, is it publicly available? 

• Open-source tools are more customizable and offer more transparency. 

• On the other hand, proprietary, closed-source tools can be easier to plug and play and to use right away.

Specialized Expertise

• Does the tool tackle all sorts of tasks? Or is it a pro in specific areas like writing code, creating content, or automating tasks? 

• Consider your needs. For example, if you deal primarily with text-based material, an AI tool specializing in writing might be your best fit.

Transparency and Accountability

• Is your company clear on how the tool works, where the data comes from, and how it handles issues like privacy?

• Look at reviews and reputation to find out what other users say about it.

Performance and Scalability

• Is the tool as accurate, fast, and reliable as your target tasks demand? 

• Consider how well it can scale if you need to add more users or increase the complexity of your requests. 

Cost and Value

• Are you getting good value for money?

• Analyze the pricing structure, including any hidden fees or limitations, to ensure the tool provides good value for your budget.

• Explore the availability of free trials or freemium options to test the tool's capabilities before committing to a paid plan.

The Bottom Line

AI is changing at the speed of light. 

To keep up with tech advancements and ensure you’re not left behind, it’s crucial to choose an AI tool that meets your needs. 

Whatever your workflow demands, there’s an AI tool that’s right for you. The top ChatGPT alternatives include:

• ContentShake AI for content marketing and SEO-rich content 
• Gemini for general tasks and Google Workspace products
• Microsoft Copilot for working with Microsoft 365
• Github Copilot for coding 
• Perplexity AI for research
• Pi.ai for personal use
• Midjourney for image generation

Explore and experiment, discover the perfect fit for your teams, and watch your productivity soar.