It’s Monday morning, and you’re just getting ready to respond to brainstorm some content ideas for this week’s deadlines. You figure ChatGPT might help you get the ball rolling, so you open up a new tab and start to load it up. But then…
“ChatGPT is at capacity right now. Get notified when we’re back” 🤦♀️
Yeah, we’ve all been there. Despite how helpful ChatGPT can be, the overloaded servers, clunky interface, and limited ways to access it are real turn-offs. So if you’re considering a ChatGPT alternative, we not only understand, but we’re going to help you out, too.
Read on to learn about seven ChatGPT alternatives that can transform the way you work.
Why use a ChatGPT alternative?
While ChatGPT became really popular through its viral success, it's not necessarily the best generative AI tool out there. Here are some reasons why you might want to consider a ChatGPT alternative:
- The UI is clunky. Let's face it, ChatGPT's UI isn't exactly user-friendly. It's clunky, creating and deleting new chats isn't intuitive, and even the prompts library is a mess and confusing to access.
- The load times. Do we need to say more? Not knowing if ChatGPT will be available when you really need it is just unnerving, frankly.
- It restricts you. Since ChatGPT only has a web app, you have to keep switching tabs and logging in to use it (and you can only use it if it's available at the time). It doesn't work where you do.
- There are better alternatives. If there are ChatGPT alternatives that offer more value, why not use them?
Speaking of alternatives, let's take a look at some of the options that come out tops.
The 7 best ChatGPT alternatives in 2024
Looking to improve your productivity with a ChatGPT alternative? Here are the best ones in 2024 to consider.
1. Jasper
Best for long-form and business writing
Jasper is one of the most widely used AI writing tools for business users, with over 100 templates to help you with dozens of different tasks, like writing emails and social media posts, creating outlines, and composing SEO-optimized articles. This AI-powered content creating tool relies on OpenAI's GPT language models (the same ones ChatGPT uses) to generate text, and Jasper has even built its own version of ChatGPT called Jasper Chat.
Like ChatGPT, Jasper Chat offers a conversational interface that answers your questions in 29 languages and remembers your previous questions, which gives you more contextual answers. Jasper and Jasper Chat are both more refined for business use cases, like marketing or sales, than ChatGPT.
Jasper also supports integrations with tools like Copyscape, SurferSEO, and Grammarly to help you improve your workflow. You can use these tools to check plagiarism, optimize your articles for SEO, and proofread and edit your work as you go.
Unlike ChatGPT, Jasper doesn’t have a free plan, but you can try it out for free with Jasper's five-day trial which comes with 10,000 free credits.
2. Bing AI
Best AI-powered search engine
Although Microsoft is a majority stakeholder in OpenAI (and ChatGPT by extension), it developed its own Bing AI to make its search engine more competitive. (Does this mean Bing will finally give Google a run for its money?) Bing Chat is intended to refine your search experience, providing direct answers to any queries you have. If Bing's AI can't answer your question, it will link you to a relevant source instead.
While ChatGPT limits you to its web app, Bing Chat works on Microsoft Edge on any device. This means you can use it on tablets and mobile devices, too. You also won't have to deal with load times, although requests are limited to 1,000 words, and you can only have 150 conversations a day.
Overall, if you're looking for a powerful free AI research tool, then Bing AI is an excellent option. But for content creation, ChatGPT or Jasper are better.
3. Bard AI
Google’s ChatGPT alternative
Bard AI is Google's answer to ChatGPT/Bing AI, and it's powered by Google's own AI model—LaMBDA. Unfortunately, Bard AI's responses aren't always factually correct, and while ChatGPT shares this problem, Bard AI seems to be less accurate overall. In fact, Elon Musk (who had a stake in OpenAI but sold it to Microsoft) weighed in on Bard’s position as a ChatGPT competitor:
So, Bard seems to fall short for now. Still, Bard AI is being developed and trained further by Google, so there's a good chance that it'll become more advanced over the years. And for now, Bard AI is quite helpful for generating and summarizing text and getting answers to simpler questions. Additionally, you can give Bard prompts via your device's microphone, and Bard's "drafts" option lets you pick from different options for your output.
Bard AI isn't fully rolled out yet, so it's currently free and only available in a few countries. It's worth trying the AI chatbot out, however, and it's likely to become more mainstream in future.
4. Magical
A ChatGPT alternative that works where you do
As we mentioned earlier, ChatGPT has some major drawbacks—it's clunky, unintuitive, and only works on its web app. Fortunately, Magical brings you all of ChatGPT’s AI powers without any of these drawbacks. Powered by OpenAI’s engine, Magical’s AI assist lets you generate text and customize your messages while you work, wherever you’re working.
Since Magical is a Chrome extension, you can use it in any of your open tabs—no need to navigate to a separate web app. Planning to reach out to prospects on LinkedIn? Fire up the Magical Chrome extension and use AI assist to craft personalized messages. Need to follow up on an email? Paste the message into Magical and let AI assist generate a response for you. You can also save customizable messages or phrases you use frequently as templates and text shortcuts for later use.
And the best part? Magical is free to use and it doesn’t require any setup. Just add it to Chrome and start using AI wherever you work.
5. CoPilot
Best ChatGPT alternative for writing code
If you're looking for a ChatGPT alternative for writing code, then GitHub CoPilot, which uses OpenAI's Codex GPT model and existing codebases to generate code, is your best bet. CoPilot is compatible with lots of different platforms, including JetBrains and VS Code, Neovim, and it can generate syntax in up to 12 languages, including Perl, PHP, Bash, Go, Javascript, and more.
To use CoPilot, you need to write a comment explaining the logic you want, and the tool will proceed to generate code to meet your requirements. It also offers suggestions when you're writing to help you finish your line of code, as well as what variables to fill in depending on the context of your code.
Since Copilot is owned by GitHub, contributors to open-source projects and students get free access to the platform. Otherwise, an individual subscription will cost you $10/month, while the business plan costs $9/month.
6. Consensus
A ChatGPT alternative for AI-powered research
Consensus is a really interesting AI tool designed for one specific purpose: to help you find answers from research papers. It's essentially a search engine for research papers, so if you need to find studies around a topic you're discussing or want to research on a scientific subject, Consensus can save you lots of time by simplifying your search.
A common complaint about AI tools, including ChatGPT, is that they're prone to factual inaccuracies. But since Consensus's responses come from research papers (and it cites the relevant sources), you can get accurate responses to your queries. However, because of the platform's single focus, it doesn't give you any of the other features that ChatGPT offers, like text generation and translations.
Consensus is currently free to use, but the app is still in beta.
7. YouChat
A developing AI-powered search engine
YouChat is another conversational AI model launched by the search engine You. YouChat is intended to be You's version of ChatGPT, but the tool isn't as mature as ChatGPT. While it covers most of what ChatGPT does, including writing emails, creating content, translating text, writing code, and responding to general questions, its answers aren't as polished and lack the depth of ChatGPT's. YouChat is also not as careful about filtering out potentially wrong answers.
So, is there any reason to use YouChat over ChatGPT, to begin with? Well, it depends on your preferences. For starters, since YouChat isn't nearly as popular, you won't run into load time issues—it typically generates responses quicker. It also cites sources when answering your questions.
YouChat is currently completely free to use, but the platform is still under development, so it may start charging users down the line.
Which ChatGPT alternative should you go for?
Depending on your use case, you might find one ChatGPT alternative more useful than the others. Consensus is great for research, Jasper is brilliant for business writing and creating long-form content, and Magical lets you integrate AI with your existing workflow.
If you want an AI assistant that helps you respond to emails, write personalized outreach messages, and takes some heavy lifting off your shoulders, then Magical is an excellent choice. Add it to Chrome today and let us know what you think.
.webp)
