Recommendations
Build a small app or feature
The tools and models best suited to this task, ranked on a transparent weighted score. Adjust the filters to match your skill, budget, and privacy needs.
Skill level
Budget
Output
Claude
Anthropic · Free + paid tiers
Long documents and careful, nuanced writing
Why it fits
Watch out: Not a media generator
Starter prompt
Here is a document: <doc> [paste] </doc> Task: [what you need]. Return [format]. Quote the exact passages you rely on and flag anything ambiguous.
Anthropic Claude (API)
Anthropic · Pay as you go
Building with long-context, careful models
Why it fits
Watch out: Requires engineering effort
Starter prompt
System: [role + rules] User: <data>[...]</data> Task: [...]. Output: [schema].
All matches, ranked
Compare top picksClaude
Anthropic
A careful assistant that excels at long documents, nuanced writing, coding, and reviewing contracts and reports.
ChatGPT
OpenAI
A versatile general-purpose assistant for writing, analysis, coding, and images. The strongest default when you are not sure which tool to use.
Gemini
Google's multimodal assistant, strong for research with search grounding and for users in the Google ecosystem.
Anthropic Claude (API)
Anthropic
The model layer behind Claude, suited to long-context, document-heavy, and analysis-heavy applications.
Cursor
Anysphere
An AI-first code editor that understands your whole project and makes multi-file edits.
GitHub Copilot
GitHub (Microsoft)
An in-editor coding assistant that completes, explains, and reviews code with context from your repository.
OpenAI GPT (API)
OpenAI
The model layer behind ChatGPT, for developers building custom assistants, agents, and AI features.
Meta Llama
Meta
Open-weight models you can run on your own infrastructure for full control over data and cost.
Mistral
Mistral AI
Efficient open-weight and API models with good multilingual performance and private-deployment options.
Hugging Face
Hugging Face
The hub for open models and datasets, with tools to try, host, and deploy them.
Microsoft Copilot
Microsoft
AI woven into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, with enterprise data protection on business plans.
Poe
Quora
One app that gives you access to many AI models and bots, handy for comparing answers.
Curated recommendations based on publicly available information and practical usage. Not an exhaustive list of every AI tool.