💬 Best Chat assistants AI Tools

A desktop or Docker app for chatting with your own documents using local or cloud AI models

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

Visual AI agent builder with a free plan

Free $0 (100 conversations); Plus about $150/mo billed annually; Team about $750/mo billed annually; Enterprise custom

Private AI chat built into the Brave browser

Free Leo included with Brave; Leo AI Premium about $14.99/mo or $149.99/yr

Advanced AI assistant for writing, coding, and problem-solving

$20/month

A desktop AI studio that puts many chat models, assistants and agents into one app

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

Anthropic's most capable model

Pay-per-use

Anthropic's AI coding agent that works in your terminal, IDE and browser

Included with Claude Pro ($20/mo, or $17/mo billed annually) and Max (from $100/mo); not part of the Free plan

Anthropic's powerful AI for analysis, writing, and coding

$20/month

An open-source AI coding assistant that plugs into VS Code and JetBrains

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

Free AI chat with strong reasoning and coding help

Chat app free to use; API usage-based (e.g. DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash listed around $0.003-$0.044 per 1M tokens depending on input/output)

Private AI chat from DuckDuckGo

Free private AI chat (DuckDuckGo Duck.ai)

An AI research assistant for finding and analysing academic papers

Free Basic plan; Pro $49/user/mo and Scale $169/user/mo billed annually; Enterprise via sales

Google's open-source AI agent that brings Gemini into your terminal

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

A research partner grounded in your own documents, from Google

Free to use; higher limits through Google AI Plus, Pro and Ultra subscriptions

Google's advanced AI model

Pay-per-use

Open-source local chat models on any device

Free open-source (MIT); optional Nomic cloud products priced separately

AI writing assistant for clarity and correctness

$12/month

xAI chat assistant with voice and image generation

Free to try on web and apps; higher access via paid xAI/X plans (confirm current SuperGrok or X Premium bundles on x.ai)

All-in-one AI writer with a free plan

Free plan available; paid plans from about $4.99-$9.99 (confirm current tier names on pricing page)

Free chat UI for open models from Hugging Face

Free to use via Hugging Face chat (subject to Hugging Face account and fair-use limits)

A desktop app that lets you chat with AI models that run fully offline on your own computer

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

Ad-free private search with the Kagi Assistant built in

Free trial of 100 searches; Starter $5/mo; Professional $10/mo; Ultimate $25/mo (annual discount available)

A self-hosted, ChatGPT-style chat app that connects to many AI providers in one place

Free and open source; self-hosting, model or API costs may apply

An AI assistant that handles email, scheduling and everyday admin for you

From $29.99/user/month for 3,000 credits; $50 in free credits to try for 7 days; Enterprise plans