For months, the OpenAI team has been building up to a massive launch. They spoke of a landscape-changing update that would change what AI could do.
Now, that update is here in the form of GPT-5. However, not everyone is happy with this newest version of ChatGPT. Critics have complained that not only is it not a great update, but that they would rather use the earlier version over this.
However, once your device updates to GPT-5, there is no option to use older versions of the tool. OpenAI has since said that it will correct this, offering users the ability to use GPT-4 instead.
Of course, this is still the early days. GPT-5 will get better over time with updates as the team has had the chance to understand how people are using it. Not everyone is unhappy either, there seems to be a big split, with just as many enjoying the tool as those who aren’t getting on with it.
However, if you fall into the camp that feels let down by GPT-5, the good news is that this is a packed market. There are plenty of other great tools on the market to try instead. These are our top picks.
Google Gemini
Google and OpenAI have been battling it out since the earliest stages of chatbots. The two titans of tech have the money and technology to be the best, and that makes Gemini a worthy opponent for ChatGPT.
With Gemini, you’re getting one of the best chatbots for coding, and also a model that isn’t quite as sycophantic as ChatGPT.
Gemini has a lot of the same features as ChatGPT, and also offers fairly similar benefits in the tool. One feature that stands out with Gemini is the depth of its deep research. It can produce incredibly detailed responses, diving into every corner of the internet for your answer.
It isn’t as stylish as ChatGPT, and it does have a tendency to misunderstand what you’re asking sometimes, and we’ve noticed a higher rate of hallucinations. However, it is an otherwise great ChatGPT alternative.
Anthropic Claude
Claude has very quickly risen through the ranks to become a leading competitor in this crowded market.
The chatbot has a focus on deliberate and careful research, and the team behind the tool reflects this. They perform lots of independent research and have created a chatbot that feels in keeping with that philosophy.
It’s great for coding, allowing you to publish any tool you code onto its own web link, and offers a wide variety of pre-built apps to explore.
Like Gemini, it is also more to-the-point than ChatGPT, focusing less on being friendly and more on getting you an immediate answer.
While it has always performed well on benchmarks, it hasn’t been as successful as ChatGPT or Gemini overall, but over the next few years, it will be a truly competitive force of nature.
One feature, that will either make or break it for you, is that Claude has no memory. That means, unlike ChatGPT and Gemini, it can’t store information about you. ChatGPT uses this information to personalize answers, giving responses that better fit your needs.
Grok 4
xAI’s Grok has a slippery reputation. On benchmarks, it is one of the most powerful AI chatbots around. It is great for coding and has proved to be a formidable force when it comes to deep research.
However, it has also found itself in constant controversy, whether thats because of its AI girlfriend feature, or repeated mistakes where the chatbot accidentally starts to support conspiracy theories.
Grok doesn’t get the same recognition as the options above, and there is good reason for that, with a somewhat mixed bag of experiences. However, that is not to say it isn’t one of the best chatbots on the market, especially when put through legitimate AI tests.
Perplexity
Perplexity isn’t technically a chatbot. Think of it more like an overpowered Google, complete with lots of AI tricks up its imaginary sleeve.
If you’ve been using ChatGPT as an alternative to Google, Perplexity could feel like a natural fit. It thrives when you ask it questions, or if you’re simply using ChatGPT to learn new information about the world around you.
However, it falls down in some of the newer features we’re seeing in chatbots. Its image and video generation isn’t as good as the competitors', and it can’t generate code like its alternatives.
While it is more than capable of handling most queries, it does have some areas that fall outside of its remit. However, these are few and far between for the average user.
Le Chat
One of the lesser-known options out there right now, Le Chat is a French chatbot service created by Mistral.
It doesn’t perform as well as its peers above on benchmarking, and arguably isn’t quite as smart. However, it makes up for that in other ways that might be important to certain users.
In a recent examination, it scored the highest out of all chatbots on its privacy and how it deals with data, it also has a function for ultra-fast responses, where it will generate 10 times faster than normal.
On top of that, Le Chat doesn’t store any data from your conversations and, like Claude, it doesn’t have a memory of previous chats. In other words, this is the model to switch to for the privacy concerned.
More from Tom's Guide
- AI voice cloning is exploding — Hume’s CEO warns about celebrity impersonations and the urgent need for safeguards
- ChatGPT-5 just got 4 new personalities — here’s how to use them (and why you should)
- ChatGPT-4o is coming back after massive GPT-5 backlash — here’s what happened
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