Compare AI tools

	Claude Code S	Gemini A	Perplexity S	Flux (Black Forest Labs) A
Tagline	Anthropic's CLI agent. Opus-powered, operates on your repo directly.	Google's answer. Best integrated with Workspace + free for a lot.	AI search done right. Cited answers, not chat theater.	Open weights + strong photorealism. The open-source answer.
Category	coding	chat	research	image
Pricing	Part of Claude Pro/Max/Team plans	Free + $20/mo Advanced (bundled with 2TB Drive)	Free + $20/mo Pro	API + open weights (Schnell is Apache 2.0)
Best for	Developers who want an agent, not autocomplete. Large refactors, tests, docs.	Anyone already on Google, research tasks, summarizing long documents.	Replacing Google for any question where you want a cited answer in seconds.	Developers + power users who want control and privacy.
Strengths	Runs locally, edits your actual files Strong on large codebases with 1M context Great at multi-step tasks	Native Google Workspace integration Very long context (1M+) Deep Research feature Free tier is generous	Sources every claim Fast, current answers Pro Search runs multi-step research Spaces for persistent context	Runs locally on a beefy GPU Very photoreal Best open-weight model
Weaknesses	Terminal-based — learning curve Can't be used without Claude subscription	Writing quality trails Claude Over-refusals on edge content UI is cluttered	Not a general chatbot Answers can be shallow on complex topics	Harder to use than hosted tools Needs infra
Kai's verdict	S-tier if you live in the terminal. Different shape than Cursor — complementary, not replacement.	A-tier. The Deep Research feature is genuinely useful. Don't sleep on it if you're already paying Google.	S-tier for search. I use it before Google now. If you're still Googling everything, try this for a week.	A-tier. S-tier if you self-host. The reason open-source image gen matters.
Link	Open →	Open →	Open →	Open →