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Compare AI Tools

Pick two to five tools. Every cell comes from a verified record; anything unverified says so. There is no overall winner — the right choice depends on your task, budget and technical needs.

AI tools & apps AI models

Tool 1Tool 2Tool 3 (optional)Tool 4 (optional)Tool 5 (optional)

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Criterion	Gemini API and Google AI Studio	OpenAI API	Claude Developer Platform (Claude API)	OpenRouter	GroqCloud
Provider	Google	OpenAI	Anthropic	OpenRouter	Groq
What it is for	Google's developer API for Gemini models, with a free tier in Google AI Studio and paid tiers for production.	Pay-per-token developer access to OpenAI's GPT models for building apps, agents and automations.	Developer access to Anthropic's Claude models with usage-based pricing, batch discounts and prompt caching.	One OpenAI-compatible API key for hundreds of models from many providers.	Low-latency inference API for open models running on Groq's LPU hardware.
Latest confirmed model	Gemini 4 Argon (gemini-4-argon)	GPT-6 Astra (gpt-6-astra)	Claude Fable 5.1 (claude-fable-5-1); Claude Opus 5.5 is the recommended default	—	—
Main capabilities	Free tier Gemini 4 Argon (Depends on plan) Flash and Flash-Lite models Batch API Live API and speech models Preview models (Preview)	Tiered GPT-6 model family Batch processing Flex processing Fast mode Prompt caching Moderation model	Four-tier model lineup Adaptive thinking and effort control Message Batches API Prompt caching Server tools Claude Mythos 5.1 (Limited)	Unified API Free models (Limited) BYOK (Depends on plan) Routing and spend controls (Depends on plan) EU in-region routing (Depends on plan) SDKs	Production models Preview models (Preview) Free plan (Limited) Developer plan (Depends on plan) Speech-to-text
Free plan	Yes Lower rate limits; exact limits shown in AI Studio, not on the docs page.	No	No	Yes 50 requests/day and 20 requests/minute; 1,000/day after buying at least $10 in credits	Yes Rate-limited; exact limits shown in account settings
Cheapest paid plan	No monthly list price	No monthly list price	No monthly list price	No monthly list price	No monthly list price
API access	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)	Yes · docs (opens in a new tab)
Learning curve	Beginner-friendly	Some experience helps	Some experience helps	Beginner-friendly	Beginner-friendly
Last verified	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026	Oct 19, 2026

How to choose

Start from the rows that matter for your job: a free plan and learning curve for casual use; API access, rates and data terms for building products; context window and modalities for long documents or images. Provider claims are labelled as such; we do not rank.

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