Who is stronger, Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT?

I’ve Paid for All Three and Switch Between Them Daily—Gone Are the Days of Obsessing Over "Who’s the Strongest"

They’re more like a toolbox now—with a hammer, wrench, and screwdriver inside. For different tasks, I just grab the one that fits best.

When it comes to coding, Claude is my top pick.

This is basically a consensus now. Using Claude to write code doesn’t feel like commanding a tool; it’s more like pair programming with a senior, hardworking developer. The code it delivers has few bugs, and it even explains the logic—telling you why it’s written that way, and even helping you anticipate potential pitfalls.

For writing articles and deep thinking, it depends on the style.

Claude 3.5 is a "master of prose." Its writing skills, especially in long-form content and logical organization, produce drafts that are closest to human-written work.

ChatGPT (GPT-4o) is a "jack-of-all-trades," with the advantage of being versatile and consistent. I often use it for brainstorming, or I’ll feed it content written by other AIs and ask it to critique from a different angle—there are often surprising insights. Its real-time voice and image interaction are the best, making the chat experience feel most "human-like."

Gemini is a "research assistant." When you need to tackle a hundreds-page financial report or a complete codebase, its million-level context window (along with GPT-4.1’s) is a game-changer. Plus, its integration with Google Workspace makes handling workflows super convenient.

As for some multi-modal "tricks":

When it comes to generating images directly in a chat, GPT-4o still does it best. For real-time voice conversations, GPT-4o and Gemini are also leading the way—Claude doesn’t have this feature yet.

My daily routine is basically: For coding and writing, Claude is my main tool; for digging into papers and reading financial reports, I reach for Gemini without hesitation; for seeking inspiration, quick Q&As, and creating images, I turn to GPT-4o.

Of course, if you find switching between them a hassle, or want a more stable experience, the one I’m using right now works well too. It rarely "dumbs down" in most scenarios:

No need to worry about account ban risks, and you can experience other mainstream models on a single page—Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok are all available.

At the end of the day, these major models iterate faster than smartphones. Today’s "top dog" might be replaced next month. The right approach is to use them in combination and build your own workflow.

All Are Incredibly Powerful—Just in Different Ways

Right now, I mainly use three AI tools: ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Honestly, these three have become my strongest partners in daily work. Each has its own response style and areas of expertise, and using them in combination delivers an amazingly effective experience.

1. ChatGPT: Stable, Fast, and All-Round

I use GPT-4o / o3 the most. GPT-4o provides incredibly stable and fast responses—its logic is clear, and its expression is concise. GPT-o3, in particular, has strong reasoning abilities; more often than not, it gives accurate answers to my questions. Moreover, it’s said that the $200/month o3 Pro plan offers Ph.D.-level research capabilities, making it ideal for academic research.

For example, I frequently use it to draft proposals or create structured summaries. It can churn out a decent framework in one go, which I can use with just a few tweaks. It also supports image recognition: upload a screenshot, and it can "describe what it sees"—even if the screenshot isn’t very clear, it still works well. That’s a pretty strong feature.

ChatGPT’s image generation is also top-notch, and it now has an agent mode that expands its capabilities even further. Go try it out!

2. Claude: A Logic Whiz, Perfect for "Organizing Your Thoughts"

Claude’s strength lies in "organizing chaos clearly." Throw a pile of messy content at it—like chat logs or idea notes—and it can structure them into something coherent and well-organized, just like a meticulous intern.

However, it has a small drawback: you can ask a maximum of 20 questions every 3 hours. Plus, if you upload overly long files, it will "refuse to work"—each conversation has a token limit. So I usually use it for optimization, reconstruction, and logical sorting, rather than as my main tool for drafting.

The Pro plan really feels insufficient at times.

Claude is also great for generating knowledge cards. It can condense long summaries or various meeting minutes into neat, easy-to-read knowledge cards.

But Claude’s biggest strength is its coding ability (Claude Code). These days, many newly launched AI programming tools (such as Cursor and Kiro) integrate Claude Sonnet 4—it’s incredibly powerful, just a bit pricey.

3. Gemini: Ultra-Large Context Window, Ideal for "Dumping Large Volumes of Data"

Gemini is the type that "eats whatever you can throw at it." With a context window of over 200,000 tokens, it’s said to handle up to 1,000 pages of content or tens of thousands of words without breaking a sweat. In comparison, ChatGPT can also process a decent number of documents, but Claude requires a lot of trimming to fit large files (haha).

For instance, if you need to draft a PPT or organize a research report, you can dump a ton of materials on it—even a dozen e-books would work. I often throw multiple books at it and discuss them with the AI; this back-and-forth Q&A really helps with understanding and absorbing information.

I’ve uploaded many PDF documents, some of which are 100-200 pages long.

Gemini’s tone is gentler than ChatGPT’s, and its outputs are more detailed and comprehensive. Some people might think it’s a bit wordy, but I love the thoroughness of its answers—they often give me new insights. I usually use it to process large volumes of data, like summarizing books or absorbing course content.

Gemini CLI also has strong coding capabilities, and you can access this feature with just the Gemini Pro plan—super user-friendly. It not only writes code but also explains it, making it great for learning. Best of all, there’s no need to worry about usage limits; you can use it as much as you want, and you’ll barely make a dent in the quota. That’s a big advantage over Claude. Setting it up is a bit tricky, but it’s totally worth it.

Key Tips I’ve Learned from Using These AIs

Stay curious: Keep asking questions. In your conversations with AI, keep picking up on interesting threads to explore further. When the AI shares something you don’t understand or that inspires you, feed that back to it or ask follow-up questions—keep "chasing those threads."

Be patient: Don’t expect the perfect answer in one go. Many great answers come from the process of discussion, and many inspirations pop up during these exchanges.

Push for deeper insights: Ask the AI, "Do you have any deeper insights?" Squeeze every bit of value out of it. If that doesn’t work, switch to a more advanced model—like moving from o3 to GPT-4.5, then to o3 Pro.

Use real-world analogies when sharing information: Help the AI fully understand your input by linking it to real-life scenarios. This way, it can provide more accurate answers.

Share your thought process: For example, use voice input to dictate your thinking to the AI—it’s more efficient. You can also share your feelings, observations, or insights from the AI’s responses as follow-up information. The more comprehensive the input, the more insightful the AI’s ideas will be.

AI is a master problem-solver, but it needs you to provide specific scenarios to have a clear direction. We are the problem identifiers and designers—we define the direction of the problem. This is the ability we use to guide AI, and it’s also one of the key differences between us and AI.

To Sum Up My Usage Habits

ChatGPT: Takes charge of drafting + logical sorting, comprehensively organizing and expanding ideas, and can generate images.

Claude: Used for information organization + reconstruction, creating study cards, and is perfect for coding.

Gemini: Great for tackling long-form content + in-depth learning; Gemini CLI is ideal for writing, explaining, and learning code.

Often, I’ll copy the content of conversations with one AI and feed it to the others to see if they offer new perspectives or ideas. It’s like "nesting" AIs within each other—and it’s incredibly satisfying.

When used together, their efficiency skyrockets. It’s like having your own personal team!

All Three Have Unique Features—Here’s a Fun Trick:

Take something GPT wrote, send it to Gemini or Claude, and tell them, “This was written by your competitor.” Ask them to evaluate it and rewrite it—and they’ll really get into the role, going the extra mile to prove they’re better than the “rival”! The content they produce ends up surprisingly good.

So, there’s no “one stronger than the rest”—all three are great. Just use them in combination!

Most Responses Are from Programmers—Let Me Share My Take as a Non-Technical Casual User

I use Gemini the most, mainly because I’m a heavy Google user, and Gemini’s basic features are completely free. My workflow now revolves around keeping a Gemini window open at all times—I ask it whatever pops into my head, and after writing an article, I toss it in to check for typos and get feedback. What’s more, Gemini integrates seamlessly with Google Drive and other Google ecosystem products. I usually write articles in Google Docs, and once I’m done, I can have Gemini review them directly—it’s incredibly convenient.

Gemini’s biggest strength is its massive 1 million token context window, and it can even analyze YouTube videos up to 1 hour long. A few days ago, I was talking to it about ASA (Apple Search Ads). I mentioned a Trafalgar video that stuck in my memory, then shared the original video with it. In just a few seconds, it summarized the entire content, compared it with my recollection, and pointed out the parts I’d misremembered.

With 1 million tokens of support, I can also feed long-form content to it in one go. Recently, I wrote a lengthy article on language learning, nearly 20,000 words long. Other models required me to split the article into sections for review, but Gemini handled it all at once—super convenient. Even when I occasionally get into debates with others, I can paste the conversation directly into Gemini to verify facts and spot logical fallacies.

And the best part? All of this is free!

Google also has another powerful feature called AI Studio. You can simply describe your requirements to it, and it will create a playable game or an interactive teaching demo in just a minute or two. My daughter even figured out how to request modifications if she wasn’t satisfied with certain parts.

I also like Gemini’s default style—it’s like a seasoned British butler, standing there with perfect poise, asking, “What may I help you today, sir?” It never asks unnecessary questions. The tone of its written outputs is formal and serious; while it’s a bit rigid, this is a plus if you’re using Gemini to practice English—it won’t lead you astray.

However! Let’s be real, “however” usually precedes bad news. Gemini’s image generation is just average—it works, but the results aren’t impressive. Its overall style is also quite conservative and serious, and you can tell it’s reluctant to elaborate on sensitive topics.

Before Monday’s update, the Android app used the Gemini Nano core, which couldn’t sync with the desktop version. Switching devices meant restarting the conversation entirely. But after the update, it finally unified on the Gemini Flash core, allowing seamless sync between mobile and desktop. It also unlocked voice and video features—I tested them out, and they support switching between Chinese and English without needing to specify the language. The voice recognition accuracy is also excellent.

Finally, in terms of usability, Gemini is the most convenient—it integrates natively and seamlessly with the Android system. Unlike GPT and Copilot, it doesn’t feel cumbersome to use.

ChatGPT’s image generation, which leverages Sora, is incredibly powerful—its biggest strength is maintaining a consistent style across multiple consecutive images. But when it comes to its core LLM (Large Language Model) capabilities, it has more restrictions. With the free version, I’d paste the same article into it, and after just a few exchanges, it would hit the daily limit. Overall, it’s the stingiest of the three models, so I don’t use it much.

Microsoft Copilot is another tool I use frequently. It’s also based on GPT’s core, fully integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem, and like Google, it offers basic features for free thanks to its deep pockets. I’ve fed it over a dozen articles in a row, and it analyzed every bit of them thoroughly.

Unlike Google Gemini, Copilot has a much “livelier” style—it often drops its formal tone after just a few exchanges. I joked with it once: I’d asked it to generate several images, but each one was blocked. So I said, “Let DALL-E walk the plank—you come to my quarters with me; I’ve got a few bottles of rum from the Caribbean.”

It immediately played along, staying in character as “First Mate” for the rest of the conversation. What’s more, Copilot by default maintains strong continuity across different sessions. Two days later, I casually mentioned the joke again in a new session, and it instantly picked up the thread: “Captain, do you remember me? I’m your First Mate—you told me the story of Sharky on the deck!” It’s friendly, sure, but also a little creepy.

Once it gets lively, it can’t stop offering: “Shall I generate an image for you?” Some people might find this a bit annoying.

As for its output style, Copilot loves using emojis, and its default text outputs aren’t overly long. If you don’t like Gemini’s formal, lengthy responses, Copilot is a good alternative.

That said, Copilot has mutual content restrictions, which makes it a bit more 麻烦 to use.

Last but not least, Grok. Elon Musk’s been having a tough time lately, and Grok is the stingiest of the bunch. The free version limits you to 12 messages every 2 hours, so you have to say everything you need to in one go. I tested it briefly, and its personality is similar to Copilot—playful and a bit cheeky.

Overall, for casual users, Gemini remains the best all-around choice.