Compare AI tools

	Gemini A	Claude Code S	OpenRouter S	NotebookLM S
Tagline	Google's answer. Best integrated with Workspace + free for a lot.	Anthropic's CLI agent. Opus-powered, operates on your repo directly.	One API, every model. Pay-as-you-go, no subscriptions.	Google's research notebook. Turns your docs into a podcast.
Category	Chatbots	Coding	Dev Platform	Research
Pricing	Free + $20/mo Advanced (bundled with 2TB Drive)	Part of Claude Pro/Max/Team plans	Pay per token — model-dependent	Free
Best for	Anyone already on Google, research tasks, summarizing long documents.	Developers who want an agent, not autocomplete. Large refactors, tests, docs.	Developers experimenting across models. Apps that want fallback logic.	Students, researchers, anyone with a stack of PDFs or a topic to learn.
Strengths	Native Google Workspace integration Very long context (1M+) Deep Research feature Free tier is generous	Runs locally, edits your actual files Strong on large codebases with 1M context Great at multi-step tasks	300+ models from one endpoint Automatic fallbacks between providers No subscription — just pay what you use	Upload anything, ask questions, get cited answers Audio Overview turns docs into a 10-min podcast Great for studying
Weaknesses	Writing quality trails Claude Over-refusals on edge content UI is cluttered	Terminal-based — learning curve Can't be used without Claude subscription	Slight markup over direct API Some provider features not exposed	Google-only Can be slow on large corpora
Kai's verdict	A-tier. The Deep Research feature is genuinely useful. Don't sleep on it if you're already paying Google.	S-tier if you live in the terminal. Different shape than Cursor — complementary, not replacement.	S-tier for model-shopping. I use this for every prototype before committing.	S-tier for study. The Audio Overview is a killer feature. Try it with three of your favorite PDFs.
Link	Open →	Open →	Open →	Open →