The 6 Best Alternatives to ChatGPT – MUO – MakeUseOf
ChatGPT isn’t the only text generator AI in town.
Since its public launch in November 2022, ChatGPT, the mesmerizing AI chatbot by OpenAI, has grown in popularity like wildfire. Social media feeds are filled with incredible things people do with the chatbot. Jobseekers, programmers, high school teachers, content creators, and professionals in almost every field are finding good uses for the tool.
However, when one tool takes center stage, it's easy to lose track of the alternatives that could offer equal or even better value. We've put together six of the best ChatGPT alternatives you can use right now.
The underlying technology behind ChatGPT (first GPT 3.5, since updated to GPT-4) is the same technology that powers Chatsonic, making it almost as interesting as ChatGPT itself. However, rather than just being a clone of ChatGPT, Chatsonic goes a step further and builds on the abilities of ChatGPT while fixing some of ChatGPT's limitations.
If you ask the regular ChatGPT (without ChatGPT plugins) who won the 2022 World Cup, it wouldn't know. You'd expect a powerful AI model like ChatGPT to answer such a straightforward question in a heartbeat. However, because ChatGPT's knowledge base has a cut-off date of 2021, the AI model can't answer questions about anything that happened after 2021.
Without a ChatGPT Plus account, you can't access data from the internet in real-time using ChatGPT. This means it can't access the World Wide Web to retrieve any information about recent events or events that aren't included in its training data.
This is where Chatsonic outperforms ChatGPT. Chatsonic can access the internet and can pull information from Google's Knowledge Graph to create improved answers that are up-to-date and more consistent with recent events. We asked Chatsonic who won the 2022 World Cup and who got the best player award—it didn't disappoint.
Also, Unlike ChatGPT, you can generate images directly from the Chatsonic chat interface. Although OpenAI has DALL-E, a powerful AI image generator, the tool is a separate product that isn't integrated into the ChatGPT chatbot. There are probably technical explanations, but it's a problem nonetheless. On the other hand, Chatsonic can create digital art from prompts right from the Chatsonic chat interface. It uses both Stable Diffusion and OpenAI's DALL-E APIs to generate stunning AI art.
Although ChatGPT has a simple and intuitive user interface, a few features could improve the user experience. Chatsonic adds some of those. If you're tired of the back-and-forth typing, Chatsonic can use voice commands and, if needed, get responses via voice, as you'd do with Siri and Google Assistant. On the other hand, you'll need third-party tools to use voice commands with ChatGPT. Chatsonic also has a feature to help you share, edit and download your conversations with the AI chatbot.
However, Chatsonic is not all rosy. Although you'll get freemium access when you sign up, unlike ChatGPT, Chatsonic is mostly a paid service. You get allocated tokens, and once you're out of tokens, you'll have to stick with the barebones on offer. Also, compared to ChatGPT, Chatsonic isn't great with computer codes.
We asked ChatGPT to solve different problems in PHP, JavaScript, and HTML. ChatGPT responses were more "complete" and properly formatted in all instances, although not necessarily more accurate.
You'll find ChatGPT responses to be more detailed and longer than Chatsonic's. In several cases, Chatsonic tends to summarize its responses. That might work for some people, but we didn't find it useful when we needed a long-form response. However, those limitations aside, Chatsonic is exciting and one of the best ChatGPT alternatives.
Even before ChatGPT went viral, there was GPT-3 Playground, a platform for the public to play with OpenAI's GPT-3 AI model. Unfortunately, the tool didn't create as much buzz as ChatGPT has. This is partly because of its technical user interface and lack of consumer-focused publicity.
Ironically, although ChatGPT is getting much of the spotlight, the GPT-3 models available at the GPT-3 Playground are much larger and significantly more powerful than the variants deployed for ChatGPT. It is undoubtedly one of the most powerful AI language models around.
ChatGPT is like an iteration of the GPT-3 model that has been streamlined and fine-tuned to be more conversational and human-like in its response. It can better understand human intent, provide context-specific answers and sustain coherent conversations.
You can picture GPT-3 Playground as ChatGPT for power users. You can tweak it to do what ChatGPT does and even much more. There are more options and settings to customize the AI model to behave the way you want.
There are also some differences in the nature of the response you'll get from both demonstration models. While ChatGPT will refuse to answer questions on some sensitive topics, the GPT-3 Playground tool is less likely to refuse to answer questions. If you'd love to get handy with the GPT-3 Playground, here's a guide on how to use the GPT-3 Playground.
YouChat, like most ChatGPT alternatives on our list, is powered by OpenAI's GPT-3.5 AI model. This gives it similar capabilities as ChatGPT. It has a sleek, colorful interface and is neatly interwoven into You.com's search engine.
As a result, YouChat can act as a search engine that gives you a list of links to indexed web pages relevant to your query. Or, you can get the typical ChatGPT-styled conversational responses for questions. If you are looking for a search engine and a chatbot like ChatGPT rolled into one product, then YouChat is an excellent option.
Although YouChat uses OpenAI's GPT models, it uses proprietary technology to augment the results provided by the underlying GPT model to provide users with up-to-date information, breaking free of the limitations of GPT's 2021 knowledge cut-off date.
As a result, if you ask YouChat questions about recent events, you'll likely get more reliable results than you'll get from ChatGPT. While ChatGPT will refuse to answer questions about events after 2021, YouChat will likely respond.
YouChat has the edge over ChatGPT when it comes to handling queries about recent events. We asked YouChat and ChatGPT to compare the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro smartphones.
YouChat made a decent effort to make a comparison, while ChatGPT said it couldn't provide a suitable response.
Besides a few limitations, YouChat is a simple and powerful ChatGPT alternative that should get the exposure it deserves.
Bing AI Chat or Microsoft's AI-powered Bing—however you choose to call it—is the closest to ChatGPT you can get anywhere on the internet. It is powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 model, making it more powerful and factual than the free tier ChatGPT used by millions worldwide.
That's not all. Since Bing AI is tethered to live internet data, unlike ChatGPT, it can get real-time information about trends and events, helping it provide more up-to-date and relevant responses to prompts than your regular ChatGPT.
In addition to using OpenAI's GPT language model, Bing AI Chat also benefits from Microsoft's vast wealth of AI resources, giving it an edge over most of the ChatGPT alternatives in our list. If you want to know how Bing AI fairs against the much more popular ChatGPT, read through our ChatGPT vs. Bing AI comparison.
Another worthy alternative to ChatGPT is Google's Bard AI. Bard is probably the most powerful and widely used ChatGPT alternative that doesn't rely on OpenAI's GPT language model. Google's Bard is powered by Google's in-house PaLM 2 large language model. Although Bard's PaLM 2 model is similar to ChatGPT's GPT at the fundamental architectural level, there is a noticeable difference in the practical capabilities of the two language models.
Although Bard is quite powerful in its own right, ChatGPT enjoys the advantage of being powered by a model that has undergone several iterations of improvement. Notwithstanding, Bard has impressive abilities in crafting write-ups like articles and emails, as well as commendable mathematical abilities. It is also a useful programming aid and quite an effective tool for learning a new language.
To learn more about what you can do with the chatbot, here are some creative ways to use Google's Bard AI. If you are wondering how Bard stacks up against ChatGPT in practical everyday uses, take a look at our in-depth analysis comparing ChatGPT vs. Bard AI.
Character.AI is precisely what it says in the name—a character-theme AI chatbot that lets you simulate interaction with popular celebrities, historical figures, or movie characters. From political figures like Donald Trump to movie characters like Iron Man's Tony Stark, Character AI has a large and interesting selection of characters to interact with on the platform.
We tried out a conversation with Tony Stark about getting an Iron Man-style suit, and it was interesting, immersive, and logical. Character AI impressively reflects the tone and mannerisms of the characters on offer.
Although Character AI is primarily character-themed, you can still get a ChatGPT-style prompt and response interaction using the "Character Assistant" feature on the platform. Although generally impressive, don't expect ChatGPT-quality responses. That said, Character AI can is worth trying out.
Since OpenAI opened its latest AI model to the public, tech companies have experimented with it and fine-tuned them for several purposes. Although ChatGPT is still unique in many ways, you'll find a handful of tools that offer similar capabilities and features online.
In the long run, there are bound to be even more ChatGPT alternatives as more developers leverage the technology that powers ChatGPT to create even more amazing products.
Maxwell is a technology enthusiast who spends most of his time testing productivity software and exploring the new generation of AI chatbots. His coverage of AI has garnered over 700,000 reads and counting. With a quirky sense of humor and a passionate love for all things tech, Maxwell leverages his 8+ years of experience in tech writing to simplify complex concepts for both novices and experts alike. He has a soft spot for cutting-edge AI tools, remains a dedicated Android user, and tinkers with PHP and Python code in his free time.
