AI tools

ChatGPT

OpenAI's assistant, and the one most people mean when they say they use AI. Chat, image generation, deep research, scheduled tasks, custom GPTs and Codex sit under one subscription.

Free tier—

Web · macOS · Windows · iOS · Android

Claude

Anthropic's assistant, on the web, on the desktop and on the phone. Beyond chat it writes and runs code, searches the web, keeps memory across conversations and produces files.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web · macOS · Windows · iOS · Android · API

DeepSeek

A Chinese lab whose models are published under an open licence and can be run on your own hardware. The hosted chat is free; the weights are the reason the name comes up.

Free tier—

Web · iOS · Android · API

Gemini

Google's assistant, and the one that reaches furthest into software you already use: Search, Gmail, Docs, Photos, Android Studio and Chrome. The paid plans are storage plans with the model attached.

Free tierfrom $4.99 per month

Web · iOS · Android · API

Grok

SpaceXAI's assistant, with an image and video generator alongside the chat. It reads posts on X directly, which is where its answers differ from the rest.

Free tier—

Web · iOS · Android · API

Le Chat

Mistral's assistant, from a French lab that publishes part of its models openly. For work bound by European data rules it is the one that comes up first.

Free tier—

Web · iOS · Android · API

Meta AI

Meta's assistant, built on Llama and reachable inside WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger as well as on its own site. The Mac application reads what is on the screen.

Free tier—

Web · iOS · Android · macOS

Microsoft Copilot

Microsoft's assistant, woven through Windows and the Office applications. Its value is less the chat than the fact that it already sees the documents and mail you work in.

Free tierfrom $19.99 per month

Web · Windows · iOS · Android

Aider

A terminal tool that edits code in a git repository and commits each change itself. Every step is a commit, so anything it does can be undone with git alone.

Free tier—

macOS · Linux · Windows

Antigravity

Google's agent-first editor, built around Gemini. The agent plans across several files and shows the plan before it starts, rather than answering line by line.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

Cline

An open-source agent that lives inside VS Code. It reads the project, proposes a diff and waits for approval before it writes or runs anything.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

Continue

acquired

An open-source assistant for VS Code and JetBrains that you pointed at your own models, local or hosted. The configuration was a file in the repository, so a team shared one setup.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

Cursor

An editor built around an agent rather than an editor with an agent bolted on. Frontier models, Model Context Protocol, skills, hooks and cloud agents sit inside the place you write code.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

macOS · Windows · Linux

GitHub Copilot

Completions, a cloud agent and code review inside GitHub and the editors that plug into it. The cheapest paid entry point of any coding tool in this catalogue.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

Web · macOS · Windows · Linux · Terminal

JetBrains AI

The assistant built into IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm and the rest of the JetBrains line. It reads the same project index the IDE already keeps, which is what separates it from an editor plug-in.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

Qodo

Code review and test generation, aimed at the part of the work that happens after the code is written. It proposes tests for a diff and comments on pull requests.

Free tierfrom $30 per month

macOS · Windows · Linux · Web

Sourcegraph

Code search across every repository a company has, with an assistant that answers using that index. The search is the product; the assistant is what it enables.

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Web · macOS · Windows · Linux

Tabnine

acquired

Completion and chat for a dozen editors, with an on-premises option. It is one of the few that will run entirely inside a company network.

Free tierfrom $39 per month

macOS · Windows · Linux

Zed

A code editor written in Rust, built around speed and shared editing. Its agent panel runs models from several vendors, and you bring your own key.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

macOS · Linux · Windows

Bolt

Builds and runs a web application in the browser from a prompt, with the whole toolchain in a WebContainer. Nothing installs locally, which is also its limit.

Free tierfrom $25 per month

Web

Browser Use

An open-source library that lets an agent drive a real browser: click, type, read the page. It is the piece under a lot of the demos where a model books something.

Free tierfrom $29 per month

macOS · Linux · Windows · API

Claude Code

An agent that works in the terminal, the editor, a desktop app and the browser, against the setup you already have. It speaks Model Context Protocol, runs skills and hooks, and reaches into CI.

from $20 per month

Terminal · macOS · Windows · Linux · Web

Codex

OpenAI's coding agent, in the terminal and on the web. It works on a task in its own sandbox and comes back with a branch rather than a suggestion.

from $8 per month

Web · macOS · API

Devin

Cognition's coding agent, with its own SWE model, cloud sessions and a desktop app. Windsurf, the editor, is now sold from the same page: windsurf.com/pricing redirects here.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web

Factory

Agents aimed at the whole delivery path, not only at writing code: migrations, reviews, incident work. It connects to the trackers and repositories a team already uses.

from $20 per month

Web · macOS · Linux

Gemini CLI

Google's open-source agent for the terminal, built on Gemini. It reads a project, runs commands and speaks MCP, and the source is on GitHub.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

Goose

Block's open-source agent for the desktop and the terminal. It speaks MCP, so the tools it reaches are the ones you connect rather than a fixed list.

Free tier—

macOS · Linux · Windows

Jules

Google's asynchronous coding agent. You hand it an issue, it works in a cloud virtual machine and opens a pull request when it is done.

Free tierfrom $19.99 per month

Web

Lovable

Describe an application and it builds one, hosts it on a lovable.app address and lets you keep editing by conversation. Aimed at people who want a working product rather than a repository.

Free tierfrom $25 per month

Web

Manus

A general agent that works on a task on its own machine and reports back with files. It is aimed at research and office work rather than at a repository.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web

OpenCode

An open-source terminal agent that works with any model, including local ones. The provider is a setting rather than a decision made for you.

Free tier—

macOS · Linux · Windows

OpenHands

An open-source agent that gets a terminal, a browser and an editor, and works the way a developer would. It runs on your own infrastructure if you want.

Free tier—

Web · macOS · Linux

Replit

A development environment in the browser with an agent that writes, runs and publishes the result, plus a built-in database. The one tool here that goes from prompt to a live address without leaving the tab.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web

n8n

Workflow automation you can run on your own server: connect an API to a model to a database, on a schedule or a webhook. The open source edition is the reason it belongs here rather than among the hosted-only tools.

Free tier—

Web

v0

Vercel's generator for interfaces: you describe a screen and it returns working React, which you keep. It is the shortest path from a sketch to a deployable component for anyone already on that stack.

Free tierfrom $30 per month

Web

Adobe Firefly

Adobe's generator, trained on licensed material and wired into Photoshop and Illustrator. The licence, not the output, is why it appears in agency work.

Free tier—

Web · macOS · Windows

FLUX

Black Forest Labs' image and video models, sold through their own API and licensed for self-hosting. Several other tools generate with FLUX underneath.

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API · Web

Ideogram

An image generator that renders text inside the picture more reliably than most, which is why it turns up for posters, logos and mockups.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web · iOS · Android · API

Krea

Real-time generation where the picture changes as you draw or move a shape, plus upscaling and video. The immediacy is the point.

Free tierfrom $9 per month

Web · API

Leonardo

An image generator with fine-tuned models a user can train, aimed at game and product art where the same style has to repeat.

Free tierfrom $12 per month

Web · API

Midjourney

The image generator that set the house style everyone else was measured against. It runs on the web and in Discord, and what the subscription actually buys is GPU time rather than a number of images.

from $10 per month

Web

Playground

An image generator with a canvas rather than a prompt box, aimed at graphics that end up in a layout: banners, posts, product shots.

Free tierfrom $15 per month

Web

Recraft

One subscription in front of several vendors' image models — Nano Banana, Seedream, GPT Image, Flux — with its own style and palette controls, and video generation from the Pro tier up.

Free tierfrom $12 per month

Web · API

Stability AI

The lab behind Stable Diffusion, whose weights can be downloaded and run locally. That is the reason most of the self-hosted image stacks exist.

from $19 per month

API · Web

Descript

Video and podcast editing where you cut the transcript and the footage follows. It also clones a voice to patch a line without re-recording.

Free tierfrom $24 per month

macOS · Windows · Web

Hailuo

MiniMax's video generator, sold in credits and reachable through an API. It appears in comparisons for motion quality at a low price per clip.

Free tierfrom $9.99 per month

Web · iOS · Android · API

Higgsfield

A video generator built around camera moves: you pick the shot type and the motion, not only what is in the frame.

Free tierfrom $19 per month

Web

Kling

Kuaishou's video generator, sold in credits. It is one of the few outside the big three that people reach for when a shot needs consistent motion.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

Web · iOS · Android · API

Luma

Generated video, billed in credits, from the team behind the Ray models. It sits opposite Runway in this catalogue as the other name people actually reach for.

from $30 per month

Web

Pika

A video generator aimed at short social clips, with effects that change an existing shot rather than build one from nothing.

Free tierfrom $8 per month

Web · iOS

Runway

Generated video and image work in the browser, billed in credits rather than by the minute. Upscaling to 4K and output without a watermark start at the first paid tier.

Free tierfrom $15 per month

Web

Sora

discontinued

OpenAI's video generator, with a feed where clips were shared and remixed. Generation was bound to a ChatGPT plan rather than sold separately.

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Web · iOS

Veo

Google's video model, sold by the second through the Gemini API and reachable in Flow and the Gemini app. Audio is generated with the picture, not added after.

from $4.99 per month

API · Web

Consensus

Search over peer-reviewed papers that answers a question and shows how many studies point each way. Useful when a claim needs a citation, not a link.

Free tier—

Web

Exa

Search built for programs rather than people: you describe the kind of page you want and it returns pages, ready to feed into a model.

Free tier—

API · Web

Kagi

A search engine you pay for instead of being sold to, with an assistant attached. Relevant here because it is the only search in this catalogue whose business model does not depend on advertising against your query.

from $5 per month

Web

Perplexity

Search that answers in prose and shows the sources it read, over several vendors' models rather than its own alone. Useful when you want the citation, not the summary of a summary.

Free tierfrom $17 per month

Web · iOS · Android · macOS · Windows

Phind

not responding

A search assistant aimed at programming questions, which answers with code and the sources it read rather than with a summary.

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Web

You.com

A search assistant that answers with citations and exposes the same search through an API, which is where it matters for anything you build.

Free tier—

Web · API

AssemblyAI

Speech to text through an API, with speaker labels and summaries. It is sold by the hour of audio rather than by the token.

Free tier—

API

Deepgram

Speech to text and text to speech built for low latency, which is what a live call or a voice agent needs.

Free tier—

API

ElevenLabs

Speech from text, and voices cloned from a sample, with an API behind it. The tool most likely to appear in a client project that needs narration in a language the client does not have a studio for.

Free tierfrom $6 per month

Web · API

Figma AI

Generation and search inside Figma, plus an MCP server that hands a coding agent the real design values instead of a screenshot.

Free tierfrom $16 per month

Web · macOS · Windows

Framer

A site builder where a page is generated and then edited by hand, and published from the same place. It sits between a design tool and a CMS.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

Web · macOS · Windows

Google AI Studio

Google's console for trying the Gemini API: parameters, prompts and the code that would send the same request. It is also where an API key is issued.

Free tier—

Web

Hugging Face

Where open models, datasets and demos live. For anything self-hosted this is the first address, and often the only one that has the weights.

Free tierfrom $9 per month

Web · API

LM Studio

A desktop application for downloading and running local models, with a server that speaks the OpenAI API. Existing code points at localhost and works.

Free tier—

macOS · Windows · Linux

LangSmith

Tracing and evaluation for model applications: what was sent, what came back, what it cost. It is the layer that turns a prompt that broke into a prompt you can fix.

Free tierfrom $39 per month

Web · API

Linear

Issue tracking with agents that triage, draft and close items, and an MCP server so a coding agent can reach the same board.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

Web · macOS · Windows · iOS · Android

Murf

Voice-over generation aimed at presentations and product video, with a studio rather than only an API.

Free tierfrom $19 per month

Web · API

Napkin

Turns a paragraph into a diagram you can edit and export. It is aimed at the illustration a text needs, not at a drawing tool.

Free tierfrom $9 per month

Web

Notion AI

Search and writing across a workspace that already holds the documents. It answers from your own pages, which is a different job from a general assistant.

from $10 per month

Web · macOS · Windows · iOS · Android

Ollama

Runs open models on your own machine with one command. Nothing leaves the computer, which is the shortest answer to a data-protection question.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

macOS · Windows · Linux

OpenRouter

One API in front of models from every major vendor, with routing and fallback. You change a model name instead of an integration.

Free tier—

API · Web

Raycast

A launcher that replaces Spotlight on the Mac and grew an assistant. Its value is proximity: a model reachable by a keystroke from inside whatever you are doing, with thousands of extensions around it.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

macOS

Suno

Generates a song with vocals and instruments from a description. For a site it is the shortest path to music that is not licensed from a library.

Free tierfrom $8 per month

Web · iOS · Android

Supabase

Postgres with authentication, storage and vector search on top. For retrieval work it removes the step where a separate vector database is introduced.

Free tierfrom $25 per month

Web · API

Udio

A music generator aimed at longer arrangements and editing a section without regenerating the whole track.

Free tierfrom $10 per month

Web

Vercel

Hosting for front-end applications, with an AI SDK that a lot of projects use to talk to models. Next.js comes from the same company.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

Web · API

Warp

A terminal with an agent in it. Instead of moving your work to the model, the model sits where the work already happens, and it can bring its own inference if you would rather pay a vendor directly.

Free tierfrom $20 per month

macOS · Windows · Linux · Terminal