The ChatGPT alternatives that list a free plan on their own sites are Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Mistral's assistant. Each free plan has limits. Hemmingway, which is ours, has a free trial instead of a free plan, and its model can be downloaded and run at no cost for non-commercial use. ChatGPT has a free version as well, so the first thing to ask is what that version is not doing for you.
Free plans change often. We read each company's own site when we wrote this page and say only what it said. Check the site yourself before you rely on any of it.
Three kinds of free
"Free" covers three different offers, and they suit different people.
- A free plan with limits. You can keep using it for as long as you like, with a cap on how much you can do and often on which features you get. Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Mistral's assistant work this way.
- A free trial. You get a fixed amount to try, then choose a paid plan or stop. Hemmingway works this way.
- Free to run yourself. The model's weights are public, and you supply the computer. Hemmingway-1 is free to run for non-commercial use.
The short version
| Tool | What it is | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | Anthropic's general assistant, with a free plan | Long writing, stories and documents | Wraps short messages in notes, in our tests |
| Gemini | Google's general assistant, free with a Google Account | People who already use Google's apps | Not in our tests. Gemini inside Gmail and Docs is listed under paid plans |
| Perplexity | An answer engine, with a free plan | Questions where you want to see the sources | Built for search with citations, not for writing in your voice |
| Mistral's assistant | A chat assistant for work and code, with a free plan | Quick answers and simple tasks | Not in our tests |
| Hemmingway | Our writing app, with a free trial | Emails, messages and short pieces in your voice | A trial, not a free plan. Built for writing only |
What ChatGPT's own free version gives you
OpenAI's site says the free version of ChatGPT is open to everyone. Its plans page lists text chats on the free plan, with limits on uploads, image creation, voice, deep research and memory.
So work out what you keep running into. If it is one of those limits, another tool's free plan will have limits of its own, in different places. If what you dislike is how the writing sounds, a different model is the fix, and the price has little to do with it.
The alternatives, one at a time
Claude
Anthropic's site lists a free plan for Claude: chat on the web, desktop and mobile, with web search, files and memory across conversations. Paid plans add more usage and more models.
In our own tests, Claude's models wrote the best long stories of any we tested. On short messages they tended to wrap the text in commentary you have to cut. One caution applies to every tool here: we tested each company's named models, and a free plan may give you a different one, so our scores may not carry over to it. Hemmingway vs Claude has the numbers.
Gemini
Google's site lists a free Gemini plan with a Google Account. It covers the Gemini app, image generation and research tools, within limits. Gemini inside Gmail and Docs appears under Google's paid plans.
We did not benchmark Gemini, so we have nothing to say about how well it writes. If you already live in Google's apps, it is the easiest one to try.
Perplexity
Perplexity describes itself as replacing search results with answers, and its answers link to numbered sources. Its site lists a free plan: search with cited answers, and limited weekly use of stronger models.
It is a good free tool for looking things up. That is a different job from writing a message, and we have not tested it as a writer.
Mistral's assistant
Mistral's site now calls its chat assistant Vibe. You may know it as Le Chat. The site lists a free plan for quick answers, web search and simple tasks, with agents and longer tasks on the paid plan. We have not tested it.
Hemmingway
Hemmingway is our writing app, built on our own model, Hemmingway-1. There is a free trial with no card needed. It is a trial and not a standing free plan: you get a set amount of use, and after that you pick a plan or stop. See /pricing/.
Two other things cost nothing. The free tools on this site each open the trial with your answers filled in, so you can get one email, message or story written without learning how to prompt. And the model's weights are public under the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence, free for non-commercial use, if you have the hardware for a 27B model. How to run it locally.
In our own blind test on eighty real email and message requests, Hemmingway-1 scored 1026 and GPT-6 Astra, the ChatGPT model we tested, 976. It also came first when a judge was asked which of two replies a person wrote. Both tests are our own benchmarks, and the scores are on the model card.
It is not a general assistant. It is built for writing, not for code or research, it is English-first, and it can be wrong and still sound certain.
One we left out
Microsoft Copilot is not in the table. Microsoft's page for individuals mentions free use but does not say what the free level includes, and it lists Copilot inside Word, Excel and Outlook with its Microsoft 365 plans. We would rather leave a gap than guess.
What a free plan costs you instead
- Limits. A free plan caps how much you can do, which features you get, or both. If you use an assistant all day, you will meet the cap.
- The model. A free plan may not give you the company's strongest model.
- Your text. Read the privacy settings before you paste in anything private. ChatGPT's plans page says content is used to train its models, with an opt-out. Hemmingway never trains its models on your chats, memory or People; our privacy page lists what we keep.
How to choose
- Write down what you use ChatGPT for most: questions, writing, code or pictures.
- For questions with sources, try Perplexity's free plan. For long writing and documents, try Claude's. For work inside Google's apps, try Gemini's.
- For emails and messages that should sound like you, use Hemmingway's trial on three real messages from this week.
- Give each tool the same request in the same words, and keep the one whose answer you changed least.
For how these compare on writing quality, not on cost, see ChatGPT alternatives for writing.
Try HemmingwayDownload the app
Common questions
Is there a completely free alternative to ChatGPT?
Several assistants list a free plan on their own sites, including Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Mistral's assistant. Each caps how much you can use it. If you have the hardware, a model with open weights such as Hemmingway-1 is free to run yourself for non-commercial use.
Is Claude free?
Anthropic's site lists a free plan for Claude, with chat on the web, desktop and mobile. Paid plans add more usage and more models. Check the site for what the free plan covers today, because these plans change.
Is Gemini free?
Google's site lists a free Gemini plan with a Google Account, covering the Gemini app within limits. Gemini inside Gmail and Docs is listed under its paid plans.
Is Hemmingway free?
Hemmingway has a free trial with no card needed, not a standing free plan. The model's weights are free to download and run for non-commercial use. For the paid plans, see /pricing/.
What is the best free AI for writing?
It depends on the job, and we can only speak for the models we tested. In our own tests Claude's models wrote the best long stories, and Hemmingway-1 came first on everyday messages and on sounding like a person. A free plan may use a different model from the one we tested, so try your own examples.