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ChatGPT has become synonymous with AI chatbots, but numerous excellent alternatives are available.I've compiled a list of the best ChatGPT alternatives based on my extensive experience.

Since its launch, ChatGPT by OpenAI has received multiple upgrades, including custom GPTs, image generation and editing with DALL-E, and the ability to interact with the AI through speech. Remarkably, you can use ChatGPT without even creating an account. The recent upgrade to the new GPT-4 model has further enhanced its capabilities, and there's now a convenient desktop app available.

However, the rest of the tech industry hasn't remained idle while OpenAI progresses. Many competitors offer AI code assistants and AI chatbots that match or even surpass ChatGPT's functionality. Considering how frequently users search "is ChatGPT down," it's crucial to have reliable alternatives. For instance, Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity are some of the leading ChatGPT alternatives right now.

Sixth

Sixth's AI code assistant available on VSCode is one of the best AI chatbots in the market today. It was made specifically for developers and optimized to write high-quality code. Not only is it a good ChatGPT alternative for coding, but I can confidently say it's better for many use cases due to its additional functionalities.

Sixth's AI code assistant chat offers features like code autocomplete, project indexing in a vector database for more tailored answers to your codebase, the ability to take tracebacks from your terminal and provide a proper summary of your errors, and much more.

The only downside is that it’s currently only available on VSCode. Sixth AI code assistant uses GPT-3 for its free version and GPT-4 for its premium version.

Pricing: Sixth AI code assistant has a base free version, while the premium tier costs only $5, the cheapest among it's competition.

Gemini

Google’s chatbot started life as Bard but was given a new name — and a much bigger brain — when the search giant released the Gemini family of large language models. It is a good all-around chatbot with a friendly turn of phrase. It is also one of the most cautious and tightly moderated.

However, with a raft of new updates to the underlying model announced during the recent Google I/O developer event — it has seen some big improvements.

Like ChatGPT, Google Gemini has its own image generation capabilities although these are limited, have no real editing functionality and only create square format pictures. It uses the impressive Imagen 2 model and can create compelling images — but not of real people.

Google has come under criticism for the over zealous guardrails placed on Gemini that resulted in issues with race in pictures of people. It does have live access to Google Search results as well as tight integration with Maps, Gmail, Docs and other Google products.

The free version uses the Gemini Pro 1.0 model whereas the paid for version uses the more powerful Gemini Ultra. There is also a new Gemini 1.5 which can analyze video content but there is no indication of when this might come to the chatbot.

Pricing: Gemini Advanced is the paid for version and is available for $19.99 bundled with the Gemini One subscription service. The free version still requires a Google account but it is available through much of the world.

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft Copilot has had more names and iterations than Apple has current iPhone models — well not exactly but you get the point.

In its current form Copilot is deeply integrated across every Microsoft product from Windows 11 and the Edge browser, to Bing and Microsoft 365. Copilot is also in enterprise tools. While it is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4-Turbo, Copilot is still very much a Microsoft product.

Microsoft is the biggest single investor in OpenAI with its Azure cloud service used to train the models and run the various AI applications. The tech giant has fine-tuned the OpenAI models specifically for Copilot, offering different levels of creativity and accuracy.

Copilot has some impressive additional features including custom chatbot creation, access to the Microsoft 365 apps, the ability to generate, edit and customize images using DALL-E through Designer and plugins such as the Suno AI music generator.

Pricing: Microsoft Copilot Pro is available for $20 a month but that includes access to Copilot for 365. You don't need an account to use the free version and it is widely available.

Perplexity AI

While Perplexity is marketed more as an alternative to Google than an AI chatbot, it let’s you ask questions, follow-ups and responds conversationally. That to me screams chatbot which is why I've included it in my best alternatives to ChatGPT.

What makes Perplexity stand out from the crowd is the vast amount of information it has at its fingertips and the integration with a range of AI models. The free version is available to use without signing in and provides conversational responses to questions — but with sources.

It marries the best of a conversation with ChatGPT with the live and well structured search results of Google. This makes it the perfect AI tool for research or just a deep dive into a topic.

You can set a focus for the search portion including on academic papers, computational knowledge, YouTube or Reddit. You can also disable web search and just use it like ChatGPT.

Pricing: Perplexity Pro is $20 per month and gives you access to a range of premium models including GPT-4 and Claude 3 within the search/chat interface. 

Inflection PI

Pi from Inflection AI is my favorite large language model to talk to. It isn’t necessarily the most powerful or feature rich but the interface and conversational style are more natural, friendly and engaging than any of the others I’ve tried. 

Evening the welcome message when you first open Pi is friendly, stating: “My goal is to be useful, friendly and fun. Ask me for advice, for answers, or let’s talk about whatever’s on your mind.” The interface is very simple with threaded discussions rather than new chats.

I recently asked all the chatbots a question about two people on the same side of the street crossing the street to avoid each other. Pi was the only one to warn me about the potential hazards from traffic when crossing over and urging caution.

Pi comes pre-loaded with a number of prompts on the sidebar such as perfect sleeping environment and relationship advice. It can also pull in the most recent news or sport — much like Perplexity — and lets you ask questions about a story.

Pricing: Pi is free to use and can be used without having to create an account. It also has a voice feature for reading messages out loud.

XAI GROK

Elon Musk’s Grok is almost the anti-Pi. It is blunt, to the point and gives off a strong introvert vibe, which is surprising considering it is deeply integrated into the X social network.

Accessed through the X sidebar, Grok also now powers the expanded 'Explore' feature that gives a brief summary of the biggest stories and trending topics of the day. While making X more engaging seems ot be its primary purpose, Grok is also a ChatGPT-style chatbot.

Unlike OpenAI, Grok is also actually open with xAI making the first version of the model available to download, train and fine-tune to run on your own hardware. The big differentiator for Grok is what Elon Musk calls “free speech”. Its guardrails are less tightly wound than others.

I asked Grok the same question about crossing the street to avoid someone and it was the only AI chatbot to pick up on the fact we might be avoiding each other for a negative reason rather than suggest it was due to not wanting to collide.

Pricing: Grok is now available with an X Premium account. It previously required Premium+. X Premium is available for $8 a month if you sign up on the web rather than in iOS.

LLAMA 3

Meta is one of the biggest players in the AI space and open sources most of its models including the powerful Llama 3 large language model. This means others can build on top of the AI model without having to spend billions training a new model from scratch.

Llama 3 powers MetaAI, the virtual assistant in the Ray-Ban smart glasses, Instagram and WhatsApp. The company says it wants to eventually make MetaAI the greatest virtual assistant on the market and will upgrade it to include larger versions of Llama 3 when it launches in July.

Llama 3 is engaging, widely accessible and open. It is a big improvement on the previous version which had some refusal issues and too tight guardrails. There is also a much larger version of Llama 3 coming which will change the game.

Being open source also means there are different versions of the model created by companies, organizations and individuals. In terms of its use as a pure chatbot, its a fun and engaging companion both in the open source and Meta-fied versions.

Pricing: Llama 3 is completely free, available through MetaAI in WhatsApp, to install locally or through a third-party service such as Groq, Perplexity or Poe.