Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini: what I use each one for

At a glance

These are my subjective impressions from my own use. The details are below.

	ChatGPT	Claude	Gemini
What I use it for	Everyday search, voice conversation, Deep Research, programming in Codex	Sites, presentations and text, work in Claude Code	Google documents, learning in Canvas, video
Pros	In my use I don't hit the chat limit, and Codex has its own; live voice mode; Sol as the best quality for the price; the cheap Luna for simple tasks, practically without a limit; images; control from the phone	Less mechanical language; better-looking sites and presentations; control from the phone; Sonnet is enough for an ordinary user	Built into Google Docs, Sheets and Slides; Canvas for learning; the only one of the three that generates video; Flash is very fast
Cons	I prefer Claude for the look of sites and presentations; Tera didn't convince me	One limit for chat and Claude Code; no image or video generation of its own	Weaker models and a limit that runs out fast; Antigravity without SSH or phone control; Flash's quality is poor

ChatGPT: search and conversation

ChatGPT is what I open most often. I look things up in it, analyse things and ask ordinary everyday questions. I also use , a mode in which the assistant goes through many sources on its own and puts together a report.

The main reason is limits. In the chat, in the browser and in the app, I don't hit any limit, and even if there is one, it doesn't affect , which I use for programming, because that has its own. So conversations with the chat don't eat into the capacity I need for code. With Claude it is the other way round, more on that below.

The second reason is the live voice mode. I talk to the assistant and it answers right away, instead of only turning my speech into text. The mode has a daily limit, which in practice I don't reach. Plain dictation into the microphone has no limit. I also add reminders and notes by voice, because ChatGPT has access to my tasks, notes and calendar (I described it on the home page).

On the paid plan at around 100 PLN (in ChatGPT that is Plus) I get , currently my favourite model. I think it offers the best quality for the price among the models I know. For tasks where accuracy matters more than style, I pick it. I saw it best in the research on my plot: Sol is thorough and pulls data very carefully when I ask for it. Sonnet seems more superficial to me there, and Opus less eager to act. That is only my impression, not a test. I've seen similar differences at work too, but I won't describe those cases.

OpenAI also has cheaper models: , the cheapest, and , sitting between Luna and Sol in price and quality. Luna is much worse than Sol, but not as weak as you might expect. In version 6.1 it is plenty for simple tasks, which it can grind through for as long as you like. It is very cheap, so on the plan at 100 PLN its use is, in my practice, practically endless. That is another plus for ChatGPT, and it convinces me. I used Tera for a while, in the GPT-5.6 version, and I won't go back: it burns a lot of , like Sol, and the quality is lower than Sol's. That is my experience and opinion. I haven't tried version 6.1.

Above Sol there is also . It costs more than Sol and Opus, is priced close to Fable, and in my view it is the best model overall right now. Sol is somewhat weaker than it but much cheaper, which is why I use Sol day to day.

I also use Codex for my own small apps, such as the plot and house planner. I build it so that I can control it through an agent instead of clicking around by hand.

Claude: sites, presentations and text

I use Claude mainly in , among other things to build this site. I prefer its language to OpenAI's models: it sounds less mechanical to me. I dictate the texts for this site by voice and then run them through , an extra set of instructions that teaches the agent to write less like an AI. I also prefer how Anthropic's models do visually: the , meaning what the user sees on a page, and presentations look better to me than the competition's.

This is how I split it. The house planner is only for me and doesn't have to look nice, it has to work, so I build it in Codex, because I think it does better technically there. When something has to look good and represent me, like a site for other people, I use Claude.

The biggest minus is the limit. The browser, the app and Claude Code draw from the same pool, so if I ask something in the chat, I have less left for code. That is why I don't use Claude for everyday search and research. It irritates me, though I value its other strengths.

Claude has no image or video generation of its own. It makes graphics with code, with what a browser can do, mostly . Claude's mobile app also has a voice mode, but I don't use it. For conversation I prefer ChatGPT, because it has its own limit and I don't worry about burning the one I need for code.

For an ordinary user who doesn't burn tokens on programming, is enough in my view, and it is cheaper than . On Claude the plan at around 100 PLN is Pro, and Opus is its strongest model. only comes with the more expensive ones. Opus and Sol are cheaper than Fable and Astra and are enough for practically anyone.

Control from the phone

The Claude and ChatGPT apps have something Gemini doesn't: I can control from my phone an agent that runs on my computer. I have a home server where the agents run in server mode. I connect to them from my phone and they work on my projects without me getting up to the computer.

This post came about that way too. I dictated it from my phone to Claude running on my computer, and it assembled the article on the site as I went. I looked at the local version, gave corrections, and only then deployed to the , where the site is available to everyone. It works the same in ChatGPT. When I want Codex to fix something in a project, it takes a screenshot of how it looks, I can look at it and reply right away. I only get up to the computer when something fancier needs doing or I have to check something on the spot.

Gemini: Google documents, Canvas and video

Gemini has the Google AI Pro plan at around 100 PLN. The only reason that subscription would pay off for me today is the bundled . It sounds like a joke, but I think Google's current models are weaker than the competition. is better than the previous ones, and yesterday, on 28 October, was announced, only ordinary users don't have it yet. The difference shows in the limits. Usage on these plans is counted in a five-hour window: once the limit runs out, you wait for it to renew. There is also a weekly limit, which renews every week. With my Sol lasts two to three hours of the five-hour usage window. Argon stopped grinding after 30 minutes and did maybe a fifth, at most a quarter, of what Sol would do in the same window. That is my estimate by eye, not a measurement. The same goes for Opus: for the same money I can use Argon several times less.

For programming Gemini is out. Google's environment, , is weak as far as I'm concerned. It has two apps. The first, in agent mode, is similar to Claude Desktop or the ChatGPT desktop app and can't connect to a server over . SSH is in Antigravity IDE, but there you have to look at the code, so for someone who only wants the result and doesn't look at code, it is awkward. It also can't be controlled from the phone. Deep Research in Gemini is fairly decent, but the limits make it hard to use. is very fast, but the quality of its answers is poor in my view.

Gemini does have strong sides, though.

The most useful one is Google documents. If someone works a lot in Docs, Sheets and Slides, Gemini is built into them, can work on the document and answer questions about its content. I ran into a limitation here. With a presentation of over 50 slides, the built-in Gemini insisted it had 50 and couldn't find a slide around number 60. It was very irritating. I use it like this mostly at my job, so I don't know what the usage limit looks like there.

For learning I use Canvas. When I'm learning something, I most often ask Gemini for a quick interactive page I can click through. I described how it looks in the guide on learning with Gemini. ChatGPT has its own Canvas too, but I haven't used it, so I won't compare. Claude can create mini apps by itself, even without mentioning Canvas.

Gemini also generates images and video. It is the only one of the three that generates video. OpenAI has shut down , its video model, and Claude generates neither video nor images. ChatGPT and Gemini both have their own image models. If someone needs video, Gemini has it in one package with images and chat. An alternative is , a paid platform with many video models, including from ByteDance. You can hand it a prompt through from Claude or ChatGPT.

Google documents can also be connected to ChatGPT or Claude through MCP, so you don't have to stay with Gemini just to work in .

Which one to pick

You don't program and care about texts, sites and presentationsClaude. Sonnet is plenty, and it wins on looks and language.
You search a lot, do research, or Claude's shared limit bothers youChatGPT. You don't hit a chat limit in my use, and you also get images and voice mode.
You work in Google Docs and Sheets or need videoGemini.
You programCodex or Claude Code. I don't recommend Gemini with Antigravity.

For someone who doesn't program, I would rank them Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini. Someone who searches a lot and doesn't want to count limits can swap the first two. I've used Chinese models only for programming, so I'll write about them separately if I collect enough observations.