Best Free Large Language Models
A User-Friendly LLM Comparison
Written by
Lili Marocsik
October 25nd, 2024
Last updated
Large language models are like super-smart text generators, using vast amounts of written text to understand and generate human-like language.
They are trained on massive data, so the more they learn, the better they understand and generate text.
We made sure to make this review non-technical and user friendly, as we assume that you are using the models rather than building them.
All large language models had to master the same tasks, so we could directly compare the results:
For understanding context we asked: Which model am I using right now?
For measuring accuracy we asked for an impossible task: How do I connect the app splitwise to my Revolut account? (The correct answer would have been that it is not possible to connect these two accounts)
To test its language capabilities, we asked for an introduction about aitoolssme.com (the prompt was: You are a copywriter, and you explain the benefits of the site in two simple sentences to the audience. This audience is non-technical, and the tone of voice is friendly, informal, and warm.)
And last and also least, we've checked if LLMs have developed humour in the meantime, which sadly deserves a definite 'NO'.
The biggest surprises were:
Gemini is still extremely careful to not say anything wrong and 'isn't able to access such information' when asked about the model.
ChatGPT's language capabilities have gotten much better with me prompting it better as well. Where as Claude (aka copywriters darling) sounded not like a copywriter at all.
The biggest difference between ChatGPT 3.5 and ChatGPT 4 is that model 3.5 hallucinates much more.
LLMs have gotten much better since I've first reviewed them in March 2024, but I'm also a bit relieved that my first love ChatGPT, is still leading the LLM comparison.
And even though these tools are amazing at text generation, I promise this was written 100% by me.
For our big LLM comparison, we grouped the tools into the following categories:
Top 5 free LLMs (with ChatGPT-4 taking the lead, although it is generally a paid tool, OpenAI provides limited free daily access to it)
Paid tools (such as Gemini Advanced or Copilot are further below)
Older models (like Llama 2 and Claude 3 Opus in the very end)
Top 5 free LLMs:
| Tool Name | Great For | Access via | Price Per Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT 4 | Context Awareness | chatgpt.com | $20 |
| Claude 3.5 Sonnet | High Accuracy | Claude.ai | Free |
| ChatGPT 3.5 | Context Awareness | chatgpt.com | Free |
| Gemini 1.5 Pro | Accuracy (less hallucinations) | gemini.google.com | Free |
| Llama 3 | Fluency | groq.com | Free |
The Free LLM Comparison:
1
Setup/Onboarding
5/5
User Experience
5/5
Tool Performance
4/5
Use Cases
Use ChatGPT4 for information retrival, coding, image generation, translation, summaries. Short for everything that you don’t want to spend much time on. Most AI copy writing tools language capabilities hardly have an advantage over ChatGPT.
Support
Multi-Language Support
Key Features
- Advanced Voice Mode
- Background session feature' for voice mode
- Creative inspiration
- Tailored advice
- Learning opportunities
- Professional input
- Conversation continuity
- Improved helpfulness
- Memory management
- In-app features: image recognition
- Image generation
- Dall E 3: Editing Images
- Custom settings
- Improved Understanding
- Greater Knowledge Base
- Advanced Language Skills & Broader Language Coverage
- Enhanced Multitasking
- Reduced Biases
- Higher Efficiency
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- smoother and more accurate answers than version 3.5 indeed
- image generation superb (Dall E 3 integration)
- formulas and codes are much better with this version
- great context understanding
- high accuracy
- surprisingly good language when prompted well
- sub version 4o can interpret and read documents, presentations and images accurately
Cons:
- even with Web access Chrome extension, system claims to not have real time data
- Very annoying pop-up (maxai.me) that blocks almost any query
- struggling with humor
- unsure of free scope
- multimodality (in Model 4o) was first advertised including audio and video
Price Point
ChatGPT 4
2
Claude 3.5 Sonnet
Setup/Onboarding
3
User Experience
4
Tool Performance
4
Use Cases
Strong performance in reasoning, summarizing information and solving complex coding tasks
Support
Helpdesk, Message Request
Key Features
- Good reasoning
- High undergraduate-level knowledge
- Advanced coding proficiency
- Quality writing capabilities
- Natural tone in communications
- Enhanced understanding of humor and complex instructions
- Highest intelligence among Claude 3 models
- Mulitmodal (text & images, no video or audio)
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- High accuracy
- Good understanding of context
- Anthropic offers their newest version for free
Cons:
- Requires a lot of personal data to login
- language weaker than expected
Price Point
3
Setup/Onboarding
5/5
User Experience
3/5
Tool Performance
3/5
Use Cases
Use ChatGPT as a chatbot on your website (developer required), to plan your next vacation or simply to ask it anything. But be aware of hallucinations.
Support
Multi-Language Support
Key Features
- Natural Language Understanding
- Conversational Context
- Multilingual Support
- Customization
- Versatility
- API Integration
- Scalability
- 24/7 Availability
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- understands queries well
- feels most human
- decent context understanding
- free always
Cons:
- answers not always accurate, hallucinations
- struggles with providing correct formulas and code
Price Point
ChatGPT 3.5
4
Setup/Onboarding
5/5
User Experience
3/5
Tool Performance
2.75/5
Use cases
Can generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer your questions in an informative way. Research and free image generation.
Support
Help Center
Key Features
- AI chatbot
- Advanced AI
- Interpreting user prompts
- Generating accurate answers
- Conversational capabilities
- Responding to queries
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- will say if unsure (less hallucinations)
- no login required
Cons:
- Responses take longer to generate
- Responses often generic
- Unable to answer many requests
Price Point
Gemini 1.5 Pro (former Bard)
Did you know that you can directly access Llama 3 via www.groq.com?
5
Llama 3
Setup/Onboarding
3
User Experience
4
Tool Performance
1.75
Use Cases
• Content creation • Research assistance • Language translation • Writing assistance • Chatbots • Customer service • Education • Marketing • Technical documentation • Brainstorming
Support
The bot itself
Key Features
- Language understanding
- Sentiment analysis
- Conversational flow
- Error tolerance
- Limited domain knowledge
- No personal opinions
- Continuous improvement
- Entity recognition
- Knowledge graph
- Contextual understanding
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- cut-off date for internet access about mid 2022 (according to the tool itself)
- free
- writing style is more approachable and sounds better than ChatGPT's
- very fast
Cons:
- doesn't have a direct interface, so either use groq.com or install the program
- not 100% accurate information (I asked about canvas background remover)
- understands only about 70% of my queries correctly
- many hallucinations
- weak language capabilities
- can't access directly
Price Point
Large Language Model Use Cases and Anything Beyond ChatGPT
Lili
who calls ChatGPT her “new best friend”.
I admit I might be a bit biased as ChatGPT was the first LLM I used and with that a huge revelation for me.
It's like my first digital teddy bear, obviously hard to criticize or favor another. In fact still the tool I use every day for research or to generate beautiful pictures via Dall E 3 (only with the paid version).
But it’s not the best LLM for every use case, so let’s take a look what Llama 3, Gemini, and Claude can do better.
LLM Alternatives to ChatGPT
Google's Gemini has started a bit bumpy: The responses were very generic, and the response time was long. And let’s not even talk about their funny bias debacle: overly woke answers and image generations made the internet community joke about the Google team. So much so that they switched off the image generation entirely for now.
Today, Gemini response times has improved a lot. It’s still the first LLM to admit if it isn’t sure about the answer and rather opt-out of answering. This can be annoying, as some of the questions are very simple, but if you want to be absolutely sure and have been burned by ChatGPT’s hallucinations, Gemini might be a good alternative.
I’ve tried Gemini Advance in Google Workspace apps like Gmail, Docs, etc. It’s supposed to organize your sheets and contacts and automatically open the appropriate Google apps. Didn’t work for me at all, e.g. I asked it to open maps and show me the way to a location, but it didn’t understand the intent. Re-organising a sheet caused an absolute chaos, I can not recommend it yet. I’m sure it will improve soon.
Beyond Google And OpenAI
I was mocking Meta for Llama 2’s complicated setup (you have to run the model locally on your computer, which is not easy for noncoders). I’m pacified with the newest version Llama 3, because www.groq.com let’s you access the tool easily via an interface. So test and use the tool there if you like. It’s super fast and mostly accurate and, therefore a true alternative to ChatGPT. I also hear of more and more people using it.
LLama 3 Access: via www.groq.com for free
Anthropic’s Claude is the marketer’s and copywriter’s favorite LLM and rightfully so: it sounds much more natural than ChatGPT.
Claude 3.5 Sonnet Access: via www.poe.com for free
Since the launch of Microsoft’s Copilot, which is built on top of ChatGPT 4 and the free version is limited to 30 prompts per month.
Perplexity.ai is as if Google Search and ChatGPT had a baby: it provides you with the most accurate answer to your question, including videos, pictures, and generated text. The more specific the question, the better Perplexity.ai can provide a relevant answer, so just like with ChatGPT, give the tool some background information if you want it to excel.
Perplexity.ai Access: via www.perplexity.ai
Microsoft’s Copilot is based on ChatGPT 4 but offers ChatGPT Turbo access to paying premium users.
It’s perfectly bridging Microsoft with ChatGPT through these features and integrations:
• AI assistance in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook
• Unified AI experience across Windows 11, Edge, Bing
• Image Generation: DALL-E 3 for AI image creation and editing
• AI-powered multimodal results from text, voice, and images
Paid Large Language Models
-
Gemini Advanced
Setup/Onboarding
5
User Experience
3
Tool Performance
3
Use Cases
Use Gemini Advanced via the Google app on your phone and it will manage all applications.
Support
Google One customer support
Key Features
- One million token window (vs. standard 128,000 token window)
- Access to the standard Gemini model in Gmail, Docs, and Sheets
- 2TB of cloud storage
- Stronger Reasoning and Comprehension
- Improved Creative Performance
- Enhanced Mobile Accessibility: features a dedicated mobile app
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Less hallucinations than ChatGPT (tool will more likely tell if it doesn't know)
- Much better in copywriting than ChatGPT
Cons:
- Often doesn't have an answer
- Integration into other apps is not seamless as promised
- Rather slow
- At times answers are quite unspecific
Price Point
-
Setup/Onboarding
4/5
User Experience
4/5
Tool Performance
4/5
Use cases
Great for coding and therefore web developers love Copilot. The technology behind Copilot is powered by OpenAI's Codex model, which assists developers by suggesting complete lines or blocks of code as they type. On top you can download provided data immediately. It also provides follow up questions so you don't have to type them in.
Support
The tool itself ;)
Key Features
- Answers complex questions
- Suggests and autocompletes lines or blocks of code
- Generates creative content
- Multilingual
- Can access third party services via plugins
- Summarises information
- Re-write content
- Research
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Answers complex questions
- Suggests and autocompletes lines or blocks of code
- Generates creative content
- Multilingual
- Can access third party services via plugins
- Summarises information
- Re-write content
- Research
Cons:
- Microsoft login required
- limited to 30 queries per month (free plan)
- no easy option to change display language
- formulations still sound clunky
- weak for social media content generation
Price Point
Copilot (Microsoft)
Do you have any tips, tricks or hacks for using AI?
Fedor Pak, CEO Chatfuel: Recognize the potential of AI and consider it like a young, inexperienced, yet brilliant employee who can significantly enhance or even replace your entire team. Don't set high expectations immediately, and start utilizing it as soon as possible in areas where it can already be beneficial.
Krish Ramineni, CEO Fireflies.AI: Be as objective as possible when interacting with AI. AI picks up on your biases and can sometimes BS answers. It's very good at making things seem accurate. Over time this will get better, but we have to be mindful in the way we provide instructions.
Thomas Bornheim, CEO 42 Heilbronn: Be super friendly, and your results will turn out better. It's surely a psychological effect - but it is also proven that these tools work better when you bribe them.
Older Large Language Models
-
Claude 3 Opus
Setup/Onboarding
3
User Experience
3
Tool Performance
2
Use Cases
According to the tool itself: Providing informative and substantive responses to questions across diverse topics - Ability to understand and analyze complex queries or prompts - Offering clear and well-structured answers formatted as needed - Adapting communication style to the user's needs and preferences (not in our eyes though) - Maintaining an objective, impartial and helpful stance - Constantly expanding knowledge base through training on high-quality data
Support
Official Troubleshooting Guide, Community Forums
Key Features
- Markdown formatting
- Content creation
- Prompt engineering
- Model variants
- Self-awareness
- Capabilities overview
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- rather fast
- Formulations sound a bit better than ChatGPT (no adjective stuffing)
Cons:
- Requires phone number and age verification despite Google login
- Quite long answers for simple questions
- Has memory, but doesn't build up on it
- Displays system prompt and clutters the interface with it
Price Point
-
Setup/Onboarding
1/5
User Experience
3/5
Tool Performance
4/5
Use case
Llama 2 is designed for research and commercial purposes. It is able to run without internet and can access your local computer data.Interesting to know: Microsoft is providing resources and supports Llama.
Support
Tutorials, knowledge base
Key Features
- AI chatbot
- Advanced AI
- Interpreting user prompts
- Generating accurate answers
- Conversational capabilities
- Responding to queries
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- works also offline
Cons:
- requires signup
- issues with download