The 8 Best Free ChatGPT Alternatives You Can Try

Since its release in November 2022, ChatGPT has rapidly risen to become one of the most widely used AI tools ever created. However, this phenomenal AI chatbot that has taken the world by storm is not the only one of its kind. A new breed of ChatGPT alternatives is continuously emerging, each offering its own unique capabilities and features. We’ve put together a list of some of the best ChatGPT alternatives that you can try right now for free.

1. Claude AI

The Claude AI chatbot, by AI startup Anthropic, is undoubtedly the closest thing to a ChatGPT alternative you can find anywhere on the internet. Powered by the cutting-edge Claude 3 AI model, Claude AI is one of only a few major AI chatbots offering its users multimodal capabilities. By multimodal capabilities, we mean that you can use both text and other input formats like images as prompts to communicate with the AI chatbot.

You could even say Claude AI surpasses ChatGPT in several metrics. For instance, since the release of the Claude 3 AI model, Claude AI has shown remarkable capabilities in creative tasks like creative writing, even as much as surpassing ChatGPT in several public tests. Also, while ChatGPT only offers multimodal capabilities in its paid or premium ChatGPT Plus or ChatGPT Teams plans, you can still enjoy multimodal capabilities in the free version of Claude AI.

That’s not all. Claude AI has a larger context window. While ChatGPT has around 8k to 32k token context window for the most part, the context window of Claude AI is significantly larger at 200K tokens. You can think of the context window as the amount of text data an AI chatbot can consider before responding to a user’s query. Generally, the larger the context window, the better the AI chatbot. This is because a larger context window allows the AI chatbot to consider a broader range of information before responding to a query which increases the chances of it coming up with the best possible response. A smaller context window, on the other hand, may not be able to consider as much information before responding to a query.

So, if you need a ChatGPT alternative with a larger context window, better creative writing abilities, and free multimodal capabilities, then Claude AI is the chatbot you should go for.

2. Gemini

Google’s Gemini AI chatbot, formerly called Bard AI, has come a long way since it was first released in March 2023. Initially powered by a suite of Google-built AI models like Lambda and Palm, Google Gemini is now powered by Google’s most sophisticated AI model aptly called Gemini. It is one of the most advanced ChatGPT alternatives in the market.

How does Gemini compare with ChatGPT? While Gemini is a rapidly developing AI chatbot, it still falls short of ChatGPT in terms of core performance. Notwithstanding, Gemini can still do a lot of the things you can do with ChatGPT, and offers most of those capabilities for free. Like most AI chatbots, Gemini has areas where it excels and areas where it falls short. If you need a ChatGPT alternative with a wide range of capabilities that is quite adept at synthesizing live internet data, then you should definitely consider using ChatGPT.

3. Chatbase

Chatbase is one of the most unique ChatGPT alternatives on our list. Rather than simply being an AI chatbot you can just have a conversation with, Chatbase is an AI chatbot platform that can help you build and customize your idea of an AI chatbot in just a few minutes. So, if the responses you get from other AI chatbots do not meet your taste, maybe the answers are a bit too dry, are not presented in a way you want, or you just have a perfect idea of how you want your chatbot to respond to queries, Chatbase might be the AI chatbot solution you need.

Because Chatbase chatbots are powered by the same technology that powers ChatGPT, with a few clicks, you can set up an AI chatbot that is comparable to the likes of ChatGPT. You get to decide how the chatbot will respond to your queries, the tone of voice, the type of language it will use, and the data it should use to respond to queries—you get as much control of the chatbot as you can possibly get. It’s like ChatGPT but with the extra option of customizing it to your liking.

You don’t need any special technical or coding skills to build Chatbase chatbots. Just sign up, click through a few pages, upload any data you want to be used in the chatbot, and you are good to go. You can share the link to the bots with friends to try out. A particularly useful feature is that you can embed it on your website or app for your visitors to interact with. So, you could upload your business data to the Chatbase bot to learn from and then embed it on your website to help visitors learn more about your business by answering questions they may have. It is a perfect AI chatbot solution for those who want to build an AI chatbot that meets their unique taste.

Want to try out Chatbase for free? Here’s how to get started with building your first AI chatbot for free.

4. Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot is powered by the same technology that powers ChatGPT—GPT-4! This means the way it goes about generating answers to your queries and the nature of the answer is quite similar to ChatGPT. So, if you want to get results that are as close to ChatGPT as you can get, then Microsoft Copilot is the ChatGPT alternative you should go for.

Besides that, what makes Microsoft Copilot a standout ChatGPT alternative is that despite being built with the same technology that powers ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot is quite good at integrating live internet data into its responses.

Unlike ChatGPT, Copilot is intricately tethered to the internet, allowing it to provide real-time or at least more recent information in a way that ChatGPT does not. This, in turn, allows Microsoft Copilot to offer more relevant responses to prompts compared to ChatGPT. Although Microsoft Copilot has a paid version, unlike ChatGPT, you can still enjoy its multimodal capabilities free of charge.

5. Perplexity

A fast-rising AI-powered chatbot, Perplexity is more of a search engine and less of a ChatGPT-styled tool. However, its search-focused features don't make it less capable as a ChatGPT alternative. The AI chatbot stands out because it offers users access to the two most sophisticated AI models in the world—GPT-4 and Claude 3. This is also supported by GPT-3.5 and an in-house AI model aptly called Perplexity.

Perplexity AI uses any combination of these powerful models to synthesize real-time web data and knowledge from its underlying AI models to deliver up-to-date and comprehensive responses in a way that no other AI chatbot does. This is why Perplexity is particularly more suitable for research and work that requires up-to-date data and information from the web.

Perplexity also boasts several intriguing features, including image search, image generation and the ability to upload and analyze large chunks of files. Its free plan utilizes the GPT-3.5 language model, while the Pro plan, priced at $20 per month, harnesses the more powerful GPT-4 and Claude 3 AI models.

6. Pi AI

When you think of Pi, think of it as a powerful alternative to ChatGPT that delivers fluent, human-like, and engaging conversations that keep you locked in. Unlike most AI chatbots, Pi is particularly tailored for engaging conversations, typically responding to your queries in a way that encourages further dialogue. When it comes to AI chatbots, PI is probably one of the best in providing a truly captivating conversational experience. Although it doesn't have the sophistication of the likes of Claude and Gemini, Pi can still deliver accurate and detailed answers to most of the questions you throw at it. It can still do most of the text-based tasks that you can do with the ChatGPT. Need an email drafted? Need an article written? Need to compose lyrics to a song? Pi can hold its own against some of the most popular AI chatbots available.

What Pi lacks in technical prowess, it makes up for in its ability to hold your interest. If you're looking for a chatbot that can keep you entertained through thoughtful and dynamic exchanges, we highly recommend giving Pi a try. It's a very powerful AI chatbot in its own right, but its focus on fostering an engaging dialogue sets it apart from the competition.

7. Mistral's Le Chat

If you've not heard of Mistral's Le Chat AI chatbot, you're not alone—this new entrant into the AI space is not as popular as the likes of ChatGPT or Google's Gemini. However, it doesn't make it any less a good ChatGPT alternative. While it doesn't offer multimodality or sophisticated top-of-the-line features like ChatGPT does, it does its core function of providing accurate responses to queries, impressively well. It possesses admirable math skills and can produce impressive results at creative tasks. It doesn't come with many of the quota restrictions that come with most of the popular AI chatbots where you can only send a fixed number of messages per few hours. Whether you're looking for quick answers to simple questions or more in-depth information on a particular topic, Le Chat is designed to provide the help you need in a clear and concise manner.

8. Chatsonic

Chatsonic is one of the oldest ChatGPT alternatives in the market. The AI chatbot was released shortly after the launch of ChatGPT. Chatsonic is powered by several top-of-the-line AI models like GPT-4 and Claude 3, putting it among some of the most reliable alternatives to ChatGPT you can get. Just like ChatGPT, you can use images as a prompt, upload documents for analysis, and create images using the Chatsonic chatbot. When compared to ChatGPT, Chatsonic responses are typically more up-to-date because the AI chatbot is directly tethered to internet data. It is also better at citing sources, making it a great choice if you're looking for a ChatGPT alternative to assist you with your research.

While ChatGPT's capabilities are impressive, the emergence of these powerful alternatives makes things even more exciting. As each new chatbot vies to outperform with unique features, users can expect increasingly user-friendly and capable AI chatbots to come our way. Whether for research, creative tasks, engaging conversation, or business, there is sure to be a ChatGPT alternative that meets your unique needs. And as more alternatives pop up, it gives users more options to choose from—making us the ultimate winners in this race for innovative AI chatbots.