Best AI Tools in 2026: Free and Paid Picks for Chat, Writing, Images, Coding and More

The best AI tools are the ones matched to a specific job. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are the general chat assistants, Perplexity handles cited research, Cursor and GitHub Copilot help write code, Midjourney and Adobe Firefly generate images, and Ollama lets you run models on your own machine.

This guide picks one or two tools per job instead of ranking everything with an AI label, and the live table shows which have a free tier, which are open source and which can be self-hosted. If you only need a chatbot, the ChatGPT alternatives guide goes deeper on that one category.

How we picked the best AI tools

Enlisted's AI tools category is broad, so the first step was to sort it by job: chat, writing, images, coding, meeting notes, research, automation and local AI. Within each job, the picks are well-known tools with a clear product page, and for open-source projects, recent GitHub activity. Free tiers and pricing models are quoted from the catalogue. Model names and plan limits change quickly in this category, so the text avoids naming them and points you to each vendor's site. Nothing here was scored on answer quality. The method is in how Enlisted ranks tools.

One caution applies to everything below: hosted AI tools process your prompts and files on the vendor's servers. If that matters for your work, read each vendor's data policies, or use the local tools in the last group.

Best AI chat assistants

General assistants answer questions, draft and edit text, summarize documents and write code. They overlap heavily, so the choice often comes down to the ecosystem you already use and which free tier you prefer. See the full ChatGPT alternatives guide for hosted and self-hosted options.

1. ChatGPT: best all-round assistant to try first

ChatGPT is OpenAI's conversational AI assistant for answering questions, writing, coding and analysis through web and mobile apps. People use it to draft and edit text, write and debug code, summarize documents and brainstorm, in a chat that keeps context across a conversation.

It is a hosted, proprietary service with a free tier and paid plans for individuals and organizations. Models and plans change often, so confirm the current ones on OpenAI's site. See the ChatGPT page or ChatGPT alternatives.

• Best for: people who want one general assistant for writing, questions and code.
• Watch out for: it is hosted only with no self-hosted version, and free-tier limits change, so check the current plan.

2. Claude: best for writing, analysis and working with documents

Claude is Anthropic's AI assistant for writing, analysis, coding and working with documents, available through a web app and mobile apps. The same family of models is also offered to developers and businesses through Anthropic's API and partner cloud platforms. Enlisted lists free and paid subscription plans.

It is cloud-based and not self-hosted, and it is aimed at individuals, teams and organizations across many fields. Compare it with others on the Claude alternatives page, or open the Claude entry.

• Best for: drafting, editing and analyzing long documents in conversation.
• Watch out for: it is a hosted, proprietary service, and plan limits are set by the vendor.

3. Google Gemini: best for people who live in Google's apps

Google Gemini is Google's AI assistant for chat, writing, coding, research and generating images, video and music, available as a mobile app, on the web and on desktop. Google's overview highlights Gemini Live for spoken conversations, Deep Research for multi-step reports and a Canvas workspace for drafts and code.

Enlisted lists a free tier, with subscription options on Google's Gemini pages. The Gemini page has the listing, and Gemini alternatives lists similar assistants.

• Best for: people who already use Gmail, Docs and other Google services and want an assistant alongside them.
• Watch out for: it is closed source and hosted by Google, and which features are free versus paid is set by Google.

Microsoft's Copilot is the equivalent for Microsoft users: a chat assistant with web search and image creation that connects to Office apps and is free to use on the web. Poe gives access to many AI models in one app.

Best AI tool for writing

4. Grammarly: best for polishing writing wherever you type

Grammarly is an AI writing assistant that reviews text for grammar, tone and clarity and offers generation help in the apps and websites where you write. It works in browsers, on desktop and on mobile, and its feature set includes a grammar checker, a plagiarism checker, a paraphrasing tool and a translator.

Enlisted lists a free plan with a monthly allowance of AI prompts, plus paid plans and a free trial. See the Grammarly page or Grammarly alternatives.

• Best for: people who write emails, reports and essays and want corrections in context.
• Watch out for: it improves text you wrote more than it replaces a full chat assistant, and the free plan caps AI use.

For marketing teams, Jasper is a paid AI platform with brand voice and campaign workflow tools.

Best AI image generators

5. Midjourney: best for stylized concept art and design exploration

Midjourney is a text-to-image AI service that creates pictures from written prompts, used by artists, designers and hobbyists. You type a prompt, receive a set of visual options and refine or vary them, which has made it popular for concept art, mood boards and illustration. It offers style and aspect ratio controls.

It is a hosted, proprietary subscription service that cannot be self-hosted. Confirm how to access it and what plans exist on Midjourney's site. See the Midjourney page or Midjourney alternatives.

• Best for: designers and artists exploring visual ideas from prompts.
• Watch out for: it is closed source and hosted only, and Enlisted does not list its plan details.

6. Adobe Firefly: best for designers who work inside Creative Cloud

Adobe Firefly is Adobe's generative AI studio for creating images, video, audio and vector graphics from prompts, built into Creative Cloud. Its site says it brings many AI models together in one place alongside Adobe's own, and generated content can move into the Adobe apps designers already use.

It is a hosted commercial service with plans published by Adobe, and Enlisted lists a free tier. The Adobe Firefly page has the catalogue summary. For free editing tools to use with generated images, see the free photo editing software guide.

• Best for: designers, marketers and creative teams who already use Adobe's apps.
• Watch out for: it is closed source and hosted only, and plan details are on Adobe's site.

Ideogram, known for readable text inside images, and Leonardo.Ai, which offers fine-tuned models and editing tools, are two hosted alternatives with free tiers listed. Runway generates and edits video, images and audio, and the best video editing software guide covers conventional editors.

Best AI tools for coding

7. Cursor: best AI-first code editor for multi-file changes

Cursor is an AI-first code editor and coding agent with chat, multi-file edits, a command-line tool and cloud agents. It combines code completion and chat with agents that take on tasks, edit across multiple files and run in the cloud or from the terminal, and its site also lists an automated code review tool.

Enlisted lists a free Hobby plan alongside paid individual and team plans. See the Cursor entry, Cursor alternatives and the dedicated Cursor alternatives guide.

• Best for: developers who want an editor built around AI agents and multi-file edits.
• Watch out for: it is a standalone editor, so teams tied to another editor should compare it with GitHub Copilot.

8. GitHub Copilot: best for AI help in your existing editor and on GitHub

GitHub Copilot is an AI coding assistant and agent that works in code editors, in the terminal, in a desktop app and on GitHub, from picking up an issue to reviewing a pull request. It also includes Copilot CLI and an MCP Registry for connecting external tools, and a Copilot for Business add-on adds enterprise features.

A free plan with limited usage is listed, with paid plans above it. Open the GitHub Copilot page for the listing and GitHub Copilot alternatives for comparisons.

• Best for: developers who want AI assistance without changing editors, especially if their work lives on GitHub.
• Watch out for: the free plan has limited usage, and it is closed source and hosted only.

Terminal-based coding agents such as Claude Code read a codebase, edit files and run commands, and the Claude Code alternatives guide compares agents in that style.

Best AI meeting notes tool

9. Otter.ai: best for transcripts and summaries of video meetings

Otter.ai is a hosted AI meeting assistant that records and transcribes conversations in real time, then produces summaries, insights and action items. It works with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, and there are desktop, iOS and Android apps plus a Chrome extension.

Enlisted lists a free Basic plan and paid per-user plans, with enterprise plans through a demo. See the Otter.ai page or Otter.ai alternatives.

• Best for: teams and students who want searchable transcripts and action items from calls and lectures.
• Watch out for: it processes your recordings on the vendor's servers, so check your organization's rules about recording and data.

Fireflies.ai and Fathom are similar notetakers with free plans listed. For the video calling tools themselves, see the Zoom alternatives guide.

Best AI tools for research

10. Perplexity: best for answers with cited web sources

Perplexity is an AI answer engine that responds to questions with summarized answers and cited web sources instead of a list of links. It reads sources, writes an answer, supports follow-up questions in context and gives citations so you can check where the information came from. It is available on the web and mobile.

Features and plans change often, so confirm the current ones on Perplexity's site. See the Perplexity page or Perplexity alternatives.

• Best for: quick, sourced answers when you are looking things up.
• Watch out for: a cited summary is not a guarantee, so open the sources before you rely on a claim, and it is hosted only.

11. NotebookLM: best for questions about documents you upload

NotebookLM is Google's AI research and note-taking tool. You add your own sources, such as documents, and the assistant answers questions and summarizes material, keeping its responses tied to what the uploaded material says. It is known for generating spoken audio overviews alongside written summaries and cited answers, and Google's site now presents it under the name Gemini Notebook.

It is free to start with paid tiers for higher limits. See the NotebookLM page.

• Best for: students and researchers working through a fixed set of readings.
• Watch out for: it is closed source and hosted by Google, so your uploaded files go to Google's servers.

Best AI automation tool

12. n8n: best workflow automation with AI agents you can self-host

n8n is a fair-code workflow automation platform that mixes a visual canvas with custom JavaScript or Python steps and AI agent features. You can build multi-step agents and LLM workflows that call OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or open-source models, add human approval steps and inspect what happened afterward. The source is public, so you can run it on your own infrastructure or use a managed cloud.

Enlisted lists a free self-hosted Community Edition and paid cloud plans with a free trial. See the n8n page and the n8n alternatives guide.

• Best for: technical teams who want automations and AI agents on their own server.
• Watch out for: it is fair-code rather than a standard open-source licence, so read the licence terms for commercial use, and self-hosting adds maintenance.

Zapier is the hosted no-code alternative with a free plan and AI agents, and the Zapier alternatives guide compares both routes.

Best local and open-source AI tools

Local AI means running a model on your own computer, so prompts stay on your machine and the software costs nothing beyond hardware. Hosted models are generally larger, so expect trade-offs in capability.

13. Ollama: best way to run open language models on your own machine

Ollama makes it straightforward to run open large language models on your own computer. You install it on macOS, Windows or Linux, or use the official Docker image, then pull a model and chat with it from the command line. It is written in Go, released under the MIT licence and builds on the llama.cpp project, and it provides a REST API with official Python and JavaScript libraries.

Running models locally is free, and Ollama also lists cloud plans. Many chat interfaces work with it, including Open WebUI. See the Ollama page.

• Best for: developers and privacy-minded users who want local models behind a simple API.
• Watch out for: local models need capable hardware, and the command line is the main interface unless you add a front end.

14. Open WebUI: best self-hosted chat interface for local and cloud models

Open WebUI is a self-hosted web interface for large language models. It connects to Ollama for local models and to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, and it is designed to keep working fully offline when you rely only on local models. It offers role-based access control with user groups, retrieval-augmented generation over your documents, custom agents that bundle models, tools and knowledge, and an extension system.

It is free to self-host, installs via pip, Docker or Kubernetes, and has an enterprise plan through the vendor. Open its Enlisted page for current activity.

• Best for: households and teams who want a shared, private chat interface.
• Watch out for: it is an interface rather than a model, so you still need Ollama or another backend, and you maintain the install.

Jan is an open-source desktop app that runs local models offline and can also connect to cloud providers, and LM Studio is a desktop app for downloading and running local models. Both suit people who prefer a desktop app to a command line.

Free AI tools: what you actually get

Many of the tools above have a free tier, but the limits differ.

• Chat assistants: Enlisted lists free tiers for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot. Expect caps on usage or on the strongest models.
• Writing, notes and code: Grammarly, Otter.ai, Cursor and GitHub Copilot list free plans with limited AI usage or features.
• Research: NotebookLM is free to start, with paid tiers for higher limits.
• Automation: n8n's Community Edition is free to self-host, and Zapier has a free plan with a monthly task cap.
• Local AI: Ollama, Open WebUI and Jan are free to run, but you supply the hardware.

Free tiers are good for testing a tool on your own work. For daily use, compare the paid plan's limits in the live table, and check the vendor's terms on how your data is used.

How to choose AI tools

Start from the work you do most often, then add one tool per job.

You rarely need more than three or four of these. A chat assistant, a tool for your main job such as coding or meeting notes, and a local option if privacy matters is a sensible set. Pair them with a task manager from the best productivity apps guide and revisit the AI tools category as new options appear.