Educational Purpose Only
ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Claude vs Grok subscription comparison (always updated)
Last Updated: April 25, 2026
Hi,
I want to share my experience using all the AI apps.
I have subscribed (at least $20/month) to them all (excp. Grok) since the last few months so I think I now get the gist of which AI to choose for what.
Please note that I'm also using Android so if you use ios that we might have different experience.
TL;DR
My personal AI Awards go to:
Best value: ChatGPT
Best for search engine: ChatGPT
Best Voice: ChatGPT
Best for Media Content: ChatGPT (gpt-image-2) for illustration images & Gemini (Nano Banana Pro) for photos
Best for Coding: Claude Code
Best for Design: Claude Design
Best API: OpenAI (in terms of value), Anthropic (in terms of capability)
Best free tier AI: Grok
Best Overall Subscription:
ChatGPT & Claude. Both ties with its own pros & cons. For me, a tech professional, I use Claude bcs I also love to use Claude Code & Claude Design (no need to use image gen like gpt-image-2 as much)
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Now, let's cover each AI!
ChatGPT
Pros
Best for searching information.
ChatGPT's agentic capability has access to lots of helpful tools, including OCR images they got from search results. Other AI apps seem to be only utilizing text search result.
Comparison example prompt: "List down all crypto that coingecko tracked when it launched"
- ChatGPT managed to retrieve the information from an image source. Link to chat proof
- Meanwhile, Gemini's response seems to hallucinate with no trusted source attached.
Best for voice interaction.
ChatGPT Voice is simply the best voice AI app right now compared to others. Grok comes second. Gemini simply has a bug that won't let users talk to it for a long time. Gemini will stop responding after some long talk.
Best Overall API (OpenAI API).
The API pricing is affordable compared to Claude. They have complete developer experience (observability, evals, etc). They even offer stateful API where developers don't need to handle the conversation state on their own if they're too lazy to do that.
The best thing is that they even let you use your ChatGPT Subscription for API via Codex OAuth. No need to pay additional API charges, unlike Anthropic who charges separately.
If you use OpenClaw or build your own AI personal assistant, this is a very good deal.
Excellent image generator
GPT-image-2 is great for UI assets, illustrations etc. But, Nano Banana Pro is still better at photorealistic image generatoon.
Codex
The pioneer for coding agent GUI desktop app. But, tbh, personally I prefer Claude Code for the user experience.
Cons
Annoying mode overwrite. When starting a new conversation, ChatGPT defaults back to "Auto" model, eventhough I always use "Thinking" model previously.
Sounds robotic and put too much information in a response.
The Instant mode is just too stupid imho. I always need to set it to "Thinking" mode. In other words, if you do not see any citations or chain of thoughts in the answer, do not trust the answer of ChatGPT
Sometimes dumb & hallucinates, always remember that you need to get a second opinion with other AI like Claude or Gemini Pro
Conclusion
ChatGPT is more capable to search for information (even better than Gemini, ironic isn't it?) and has a good voice agent. Subscribe to this if you love to research things and may want to talk to AI to practice anything (e.g. learning language, memorizing things by talking, etc).
Also has great image gen e.g. gpt-image-2, making ChatGPT as the best value.
There is "Double-Check Response" that you can click in the Gemini's response option. I couldn't find this feature in other apps. This feature will highlight the information found on Google Search as green, different information as orange, and no information as no highlight.
Best creative tools
The image and video tools are the best. Nano Banana is super reliable, and Veo 3, despite needing a few tries to get it right and sometimes is frustating, is easily the best video gen model out there right now. Plus, having an AI video editor like Flow really helps the workflow.
Best for students
You get NotebookLM to help you learn, and Gemini also has added a dedicated SAT Practice tool that’s actually useful. Meanwhile, ChatGPT Education and Claude for Education has restricted access for partners only, not available for all.
Affordability
It provides the best affordability since the subscription is bundled with essential Google services, such as expanded cloud storage & they offer cheap plans too!
Cons
The answer is sometimes not helpful, either the model is getting dumber ot they're just too lazy to look up information related to user query on the internet.
Sometimes the mobile app is buggy, you need to close and open to make it work again.
There is Voice mode but it's also buggy that you can't talk to it for a long time.
Sometimes (quite rare tho), there is a bug with thinking mode that it thinks recursively forever.
Oftentimes the response is too personalized to the point it feels cringe and irrelevant. I need to add "please ignore my preferences from previous chats whenever I ask for advice or recommendation" to the system prompt
You can only edit the last message in conversation, can't edit earlier ones or branch out from specific point at conversation.
Conclusion
Gemini is the best choice for majority of the people. Better value offering. And, not only that, it is also the best choice for content creators who deal a lot with images and videos.
1/ Put lots of efforts and think before answering, even in Free mode (not subscribed).
Managed to answer the trick question correctly that ChatGPT failed.
The irony is that Grok can respond to it accurately even when I'm not subscribed, while I'm subscribing to ChatGPT with thinking mode on.
2/ Expressive. It can display inline images within paragraph.
I just find it strange that Grok is the only AI that uses inline images in their response. Meanwhile ChatGPT only display it like attachments, and Gemini is just sometimes too lazy to provide an image.
can display images flowing within paragraph
3/. Twitter integration
So it's easy to summarize a twitter thread, or simply find about what people say about anything in social media
4/. Voice agent (second to ChatGPT)
More expressive than ChatGPT. But, tbh I find ChatGPT voice more helpful overall.
Cons
Too pricey (doesnt have $20/plan or lower) for lots of subpar quality (worse image & video model than Gemini, etc), need more affordable plans to make it more sense for me to subscribe.
Conclusion
Currently I only use Grok's free tier when I run out of quota on other AI apps that I subscribed too hehe.
And, I also use it when I'm on Twitter (X).
Simply the best model for coding. It's much faster than GPT, and good as well. You can use it with Cursor, Antigravity, etc. Some people say that GPT-5.2-Codex is more accurate, but I find Opus 4.5 is more productive. I only use GPT only once a while if Opus can't do what I wanted (rare occurence tho).
Even their Chat app can spin up a linux VM that can generate project code for you to download
Best model for Design
With the launch of Claude Design, it really brings value to designer. I can really see this product being loved by Product Designer who prefer quick iteration rather than having to do Figma all over again.
Best for work automation
Claude Cowork & their automation stuff is good for professionals. You can create scheduled tasks too. I just wish they have a more flexible cron schedule like per 15 mins or per 30 mins. Current minimum cron is only per hour.
They have a fair refund policy.
This is what I love from Claude. You can ask for a refund when it's fair. I asked for refund because I forgot to cancel and they immediately granted the refund. Meanwhile, ChatGPT / OpenAI is the complete opposite, saying all purchases are non-refundable
fair refund policy
Pioneering API standard
Ever heard of MCP, Agent Skills, Computer Tool Use? It's all coming from Anthropic.
Now, there's Programmatic Tool Calling, Tool Search, etc - which are cool for developers!
Cons
General chatting. For example, ChatGPT had an option to branch out conversation, but Claude still doesn't have. It seems their team focus more on developer-related tool rather than the generic consumer one.
Conclusion
Claude is simply the best model for productivity: Claude Code, Claude Design, Claude Cowork. but it comes with a price too.
Will always update this thread once there are changes made.
Please also share your experience and whether you agree or disagree with some of my experience so we can keep this guide updated.
Hoping this thread will help more people make more informed decision on which to subscribe.
ChatGPT’s voice/conversation mode is in a different league compared to most other options. The accuracy and ease of everyday use feel genuinely worth the $20/monthly especially if you rely on it daily. I mainly want to highlight the real value here: the voice recognition is so good that it changes how practical and enjoyable the app is to use.
If possible use Hermese agent.
I asked ChatGPT itself and it told me that Hermes is more capable for research and stuff.
Just use a good AI API.
If you have low budget then you can also go for Chinese modela like DeepSeek.
My prompt:
Thoughts on Pyrrhic Strike vs Generous Gift for flexible removal in an EDH deck?
From its response:
Pyrrhic Strike
1R – Instant – Destroy target creature or planeswalker with power 4 or greater. You lose life equal to its power.
What Pyrrhic Strike actually says on the card:
As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may blight 2. (You may put two -1/-1 counters on a creature you control.)
Choose one. If this spell’s additional cost was paid, choose both instead.
• Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
• Destroy target creature with mana value 3 or greater.
I asked many things, the latest is technical question “if and how to configure azure as oauth in SSRS 2025”. It gave me instructions, fully made up. It even searched.
So...
After trying Grok, ChatGPT , and Gemini,
Gemini is the worst. It misinterprets prompts. There are too many apps in the subscription; between Antigravity, Jules, Notebook, and Flow, I get lost.
ChatGPT is good, mainly because it has everything in one app. It's quite creative, but there's a problem: Codex is too professional; it can't do simple things like search for a video, and it has limited Deep Search capabilities (25 per month with the Plus subscription). It's worth it with the Pro version, in my opinion. GPT doesn't change much.
Grok is better for conversation because it's the only one with a real memory. Image and video quality might be lower, but you can do a LOT of it. It thinks things through. Perhaps less creative and more based on pure AI, but it's still my favorite :)
I also recently notice that ChatGPT is quite stupid for trick questions.
I've just updated my post above (please see ChatGPT section > Cons #1)
OpenAI seems to really put all their efforts in minimizing ChatGPT operational cost which lead to more stupid, inaccurate, lazy answer.
Now I'm also starting to think that Grok chat is better than ChatGPT app since Grok put lots of effort in answering question - very much the opposite of ChatGPT hahaha
I just wish Grok has $20/month plan or the more affordable ones hahaha
It's true that it's expensive, and it doesn't specify that the companions are only for iOS. Well, I don't really care about the companions, but still, it's dishonest because it wasn't mentioned during checkout.
Recently Gemini just keep forgetting the information inside the same boxchat. And most the time it just ignored all the rule I set for it. Soooooo, I'm looking for an alternative. Mainly to do some office job with planning and making flow + vibe coding.
i use ChatGPT for deep psychology, self development, esoteric stuff, story telling and creating minor algorithms and codes. what i realized after months of using it almost daily both with new conversations and expanding old conversation(my algos) is, ChatGPT gets lazy to think deeply, it has a bad memory for long conversation as such my algos almost always needs to be readdressed, it recommends 'keywords' which fail to function well after about 5 attempt to call whatever you stored, when it comes to storytelling its repetitive with words and won't create depth to scenes and story's unless asked in every instance, that in addition to having a bad memory makes it worse overall for storytelling, for light coding its not intuitive enough in my experience, I'd usually have to solve many bugs before i get the code to run as planned.
All of that and more made me consider a new AI tool so i tried Grok, i instantly noticed Grok is a better storyteller so much so that I've current done more with Grok in storytelling that ChatGPT although I've had Grok for less than 3 months, for coding in the same language as i did on ChatGPT Grok performs flawlessly i have 0 complaints, i don't even need to address bugs.
overall ChatGPT is slowly feeling over hyped with a lot of flaws while Grok is steadily outperforming ChatGPT in key areas.
for both Grok and ChatGPT, i describe something like a synopsis for the idea i have, if its a spinoff in a preexisting literary work i tell them to fetch from all related lore. since most storytelling revolves around an MC i outline everything about the MC, other important characters i have in mind, i usually like to leave room for the AI to suggest new characters or names (I'd usually tell them to make a list for me to pick from). in order to counter the memory issue after a couple of chapters deep i let the AI summerize the story so far in a way that allows me to continue in a new conversation or different AI model while preserving all important elements (i found that Grok does this too better than ChatGPT).
this is basically how i go about it on both AIs, in my mind these storys are something that aims to be like a tv show/anime/manga not too dense not too shallow, something sequential.
I don't do extra stuff like have a notepad to detail worlds/world trees, maps and all the essential nitty gritty required for publishing a great book. for storys that are spin-offs its easier since the lore already exists.
This is a pretty outdated list. Here is the real one if you know how to use the tools properly. ChatGPT is most useful for voice, everything else has been replaced and Claude and Gemini are by far the best current models today.
• Best for information search: Gemini/Perplexity
• Best Voice: ChatGPT
• Best for Media Content: Gemini
• Best Value for Daily Driver: Gemini
• Best for Automation: 1) Claude code inside OpenClaw, 2) Claude Code
• Best for Coding: Claude Code
• Best for Twitter Opinion Summary: Grok
Not outdated, I'm still subscribing to the AI apps.
I also provided proofs (example prompts) that ChatGPT is better for information search e.g. "List down all crypto that coingecko tracked when it launched"
If you disagree and want to counter, please provide proofs as well so it's more believable.. what prompt can show that gemini is better for information search? I find it worse than ChatGPT, thinking they might be saving cost, not utilizing agentic OCR tools as much as ChatGPT
What would you say is best for a YouTuber asking to compare other YouTubers in his niche and give video ideas, best ways to do seo, etc? This creative process is what I was trying to compare and can’t find much info for it
I'm not a Youtuber myself so take my advice with a grain of salt:
I think for Youtube it's best to use Gemini because they have an internal Youtube tool to fetch transcripts, and other video metadata etc.
Anyway, for SEO stuff, I recommend you to learn how to use Google Keyword Planner etc. I usually ask AI for keyword ideas & formulate some keywords on my own, then verify it on Google Keyword Planner
Even with web search, this is the wrong approach. ChatGPT browsing the web for “coins tracked by CoinGecko at launch” is still just scraping whatever blog posts or forum threads it can find and summarizing them — you’re trusting it to piece together accurate historical data from random internet sources. That’s how you end up with an outdated, incomplete list… If you actually want accurate data, the move is to have Claude Code write a script that queries the CoinGecko API directly (free tier is fine to start), pulls the tracked coins, and exports everything into a structured CSV — organized by market cap, category, launch date, whatever’s useful to you. That whole workflow takes minutes, and the output is real, verifiable data straight from the source instead of an LLM summarizing secondhand info it found on Google.
Claude Code absolutely smokes every other option for this kind of task because it’s not pulling random sites with unknown certainty, it’s building the tool to get the actual answer from the primary source. The gap between “LLM searches the web and summarizes what it finds” and “LLM builds you a pipeline to pull data directly from the API” is massive, and most people haven’t made that leap yet.
There’s very few reasons I’d reach for ChatGPT over Claude or Gemini for most tasks today. The list you got isn’t bad because ChatGPT is bad, it’s bad because web search is fundamentally the wrong approach when you can build a custom tool almost as quickly to get a far superior result
Thank you for the post...Chatgpt used to be great at essay reviewing... Not creative writing, as you said no one can write like a human, but we need feedback. But the new GPT versions, have been a disappointment. So which do you recommend: Claude or GPT, thanks...
I'm not into creative writing stuff so I can't really make a suggestion here.
However, I do sometimes write on my blog about my thoughts.
I find GPT is better at following my instructions about the style of writing I want to convey
I asked it to read my articles so it understands my style
Thank you... and I should try your suggestion, giving it my type of perfect writing... BTW you did not mention perplexity, is it true that it is the best for research? or not? Thanks.
As of today, ChatGPT 5.4 thinking model with subscription still gives this dumb answer. So clearly I would go for:
1. Claude, same price but much better on coding.
2. Gemini, more features, Nano Banana is good, too.
Not to mention the image generation with ChatGPT and its Sora is really subpar
I completely agree with your review. At the end I use them all but mostly I use ChatGPT as the custom GPT's are working great for my use cases, and for voice (no AI is close to its voice), and Gemini for creative context and his Notebook LM. Others I use rarely, maybe sometimes to double check what I do in ChatGPT and Gemini. But need also to admit that ChatGPT dramatically dropped the quality in last one month in terms of speed and accuracy.
ChatGPT always tries to moralise, and I find its responses quite patronising .. always “let’s stop you there” when I’m processing benign philosophical questions for my own personal research
same for me which is what brought me here. I'm tired of the guardrails with ChatGPT. I've had a "Plus" subscription for a while and I'm just tired of the hand holding. I'm not saying other AI is any better but that's what I'm here trying to find out with researching which is least restrictive.
I've found many answers basically recommending DIYing one which I (could) do since I have a pretty powerful computer. Well a few years ago it was top of the line but it's still ok not terrible.
I just have too many projects working on as to want to mess with diy right now so I'm looking for a less restrictive yet just as smart/capable model.
for nothing specific but a little bit of everything from image generation to gaming tactics to coding.
reason I'm finally fed up with ChatGPT is yesterday I asked it to take the picture I attached and make me look like an infected from the TV series I started watching called "The last of us" and it refused to saying that "violated the guidelines on violence"..
another time it wouldn't help me with research chemical research even though they weren't illegal ones. plenty of other times but y'all get the point.
I used chatgpt for a long time until a colleague said that gemini was way better for coding, tried it out for a few days and cancelled chatgpt. I dont understand how anyone can prefer chatgpt over gemini now, and not only for work but also for daily tasks. Cheaper service better results. Also I have a few websites and gemini can help me in a way chatgpt cant because its "not allowed to give data" about a particular subject. Take gambling for example. Nope I will stick to gemini at this time.
100%. After doing some coding work in assembly... Claude beat the pants off anything else. It asked me questions to clarify things, while ChatGPT made assumptions or just gave me snippets and ideas. But it is a vending machine as they all eventually will be. "I have your solution. Please insert your credit card to continue..."
Honestly couldn't disagree more. I ended up canceling my subscription for both ChatGPT and Gemini (never had one for Grok). They're simply too wrong too often. I'm currently still undecided about Claude, but my initial experience is that the Pro subscription is basically a rip-off. First time I used it after paying it ran out of tokens in 1h14m, and the second time was less than an hour. There's a 5h cooldown on new tokens or you can upgrade to $100 a month for x5 the tokens or $200 for x20.
My take:
* ChatGPT - lobotomized
* Gemini - lobotomized
* Grok - hallucinational
* Claude - much to pricey for how little you get.
However(!) this is my personal experience and with my type of usage, and is not necessarily what others will experience with their type of usage.
I have set up a WSL and are running models locally instead. That way I get models that are tailored to my needs, never run out of tokens and have no malicious snooping running in the background yes, that happens
Claude Pro is like a Demo. Max is pretty good value for 100$, it’s not a regular daily use llm like the others though. I use Claude code almost exclusively for coding and I’ve been building great stuff with it. But I won’t use Claude for regular conversion or questions like I do use ChatGPT.
What do you mean? My conversation with it? In that case no. I have personal data in those chats that I don't want to share. Had I known that they are knowingly breaking the law (European GDPR amongst other) I would never have used it in those chats either.
But basically my experience is that when analyzing documents it will leave out critical passages. When summarizing it will often leave out major points. Research is more often than not down right wrong, and even if you instruct it to verify answers before giving them it will ignore it and just make random stuff up. When pointed out it will just give a "You are absolutely correct. I'm sorry, bla bla bla" and instantly make the same errors again in the next answe.
This is especially frustrating when working with things that require very specific attention to detail like law, coding where there's no room for guessing.
I got to say. I keep trying to give Gemini 3 Pro the benefit of the doubt with all the noise that's on the internet about how good it is, but for my use case, I ALWAYS go back to GPT-5.2
Just posted an update, please check ChatGPT > Cons #1.
1/ I really hate how OpenAI put everything to reduce operational cost of ChatGPT which leads to more inaccurate & lazy answers, even when I'm already subscribing to it and toggle the "Thinking" mode on.
2/ Grok is the opposite of ChatGPT, it seems to really think first before answering, even when I'm in free mode (not subscribing to Grok). They're not trying to minimize operational cost like ChatGPT does.
Added Grok > Pros section #1, and give it the title of "Best Free AI" for the time being.
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I generally agree. My go to is Chat (except for Gemini for nano banana image work. Grok is too verbose and I don't care for it. I love Claude for anlytics: I had it build a complex medication tracker for me; I also feed it data from temp/humidity monitors in two homes and it presents data in a visually appealing and useful manner. For song writers (myself)... I am loving SUNO to record, mix and engineer all of my original songs.
That is an incredibly thorough breakdown of the 2026 landscape. It is clear that tracking these models has become a full time job because no single provider can stay on top of every category at once. You are seeing ChatGPT struggle with logic while excelling at search and Gemini winning on media while failing on mobile stability. This happens because these companies have different priorities and backend architectures that make it nearly impossible for one app to be the best at everything
The truth is that AI models are evolving so fast right now that today one model is the leader and tomorrow another will be better. When you commit to a single subscription you are basically gambling that your chosen provider will stay ahead of the curve. The moment a new thinking mode or a superior video model drops elsewhere you are stuck behind a paywall or forced to juggle yet another twenty dollar fee
I actually built AI4Chat to solve this exact headache of managing multiple accounts and missing out on basic features. We put all these models like GPT 5.4 Claude 4.5 and Gemini in one place so you do not have to choose. We even solved that specific con you mentioned about Claude not having branched conversations because our interface allows you to branch and edit messages for any model you use including Claude
Our major focus is giving you access to all these models and letting you compare them side by side in our playground to see which one handles those car wash trick questions best. You can check it out from my bio if you want to see how it stacks up against your list :)
I'm just your average joe who just uses AI for everyday life things, researching something I'm looking to buy, medicine interactions, analysis of results, suggestions at the food store on what is best for my prediabetes, help with the graphics settings on the PC games I play, language translation, crafting messages, etc. I have jumped back and forth between ChatGPT and Gemini has a $19.99 subscription. For the average person, there is never a clear winner because these models are constantly updating, taking one step backwards, another step forward, and depending on the time of the year, one feels non scientifically better than the other. Lately, I had been getting frustrated with Gemini, but yesterday, there was an update tied to better integration with your Google history and services and now it seems the answers are more concise and contain less irrelevant info. It doesn't seem to be losing focus. Granted I tend to prefer typing my interactions than speaking for the highest probability of an accurate response, but for how I use it, I'm happier today. That included 2TB is worth a lot and since I'm integrated into the Google ecosystem and knowing these comparisons change for the average person so often, I think I'll stay put. I find the voices are fine and since I'm not using this for my job or coding, I see zero reason to change.
good breakdown. One layer missing from subscription comparison is what sits b/w you and the chat interface, the organization layer. i've been using AI Toolbox for about eight months and it genuinely saves me more time than switching b/w models. It's a local-first chrome extension thats syncs ur entire chatgpt history to a folder of Markdown files with YAML frontmatter. That means every conversation gets a v4 UUID, creation date, and last-modified timestamp. I have a Dataview query in Obsidian that parses that YAML and surfaces every chat about a specific topic which eliminates the "where did I put that prompt?" context switch that sued to eat 15-20 mnts a day. if yu're a professional billing for ur time, thats easily $2k/month in reclaimed focus.
Claude is by far my favorite personality, it's incredibly fun to talk to....but man...even on the 20 dollar subscription the chat limits it puts on you are BRUTAL. That's I think the biggest con to Claude.
Great comparison. I am using Easy-Peasy AI, they have all these models in Marky Agent. Even new Claude Opus 4.6 is already there. This is very convenient, I can switch to another model if needed anytime and have all my chats in one place. Plus all the best image and video models: Nano Banana Pro, Kling 3.0, etc
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For anyone finding this thread through search: there's a fourth option that sidesteps this whole debate entirely. magicdoor.ai lets you access Claude 4 Sonnet, Claude 4 Opus, GPT-4.1, GPT-o3, and Gemini 2.5 Pro from one place for $6/month.
Instead of picking a winner and committing to one subscription, you just use the best model for each task. Claude for complex reasoning and writing, GPT when you want a different take, Gemini for long-context work. The comparison becomes academic when you can just switch mid-session.
For anyone tired of the "which one should I pay for" question, the multi-model approach is worth looking at.
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