Filtered comparison
By Daniel Reeve · figures read at source 2026-09-10 · page updated 2026-09-18
This is the single attribute that most often decides the choice, and it is the one most comparison articles get wrong — "has web access" and "gives you sources you can check" are not the same capability. Here is who does which.
The shortlist
This is the single attribute that most often decides the choice, and it is the one most comparison articles get wrong — "has web access" and "gives you sources you can check" are not the same capability. Here is who does which.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Free tier | Context window | Web search | File upload | Image gen | Cited sources | EU hosting | Open weights | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Perplexity |
Research, cited answers, anything current | Free · Pro (see official page) | Yes — metered search | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | No | No | Open ↗ |
| ChatGPT | General-purpose work, the widest tool ecosystem | Free · Plus $20/mo · Pro tier above it | Yes — with lower limits | 1.05M tokens (GPT-6 Astra) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | No | No | Open ↗ |
 Gemini |
Google Workspace users, files, video | Free · Google AI Plus / Pro / Ultra (varies by country) | Yes — full app access | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Depends | No | Open ↗ |
 Microsoft Copilot |
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams | Bundled with Microsoft 365 tiers — check which product | Limited free tier | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Depends | No | Open ↗ |
 Grok |
High-volume generation, current topics | API $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M tokens | Limited | 500K tokens · cutoff 1 Feb 2026 | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | No | Not verified | Open ↗ |
 Mistral Le Chat |
EU data preference, self-hosting, budget | Free · Pro $14.99/mo · Team $24.99/user · Students $5.99 | Yes — plus $10/mo API credits | Not verified | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | Yes | Yes | Open ↗ |
Read from each vendor's own pages on 2026-09-10. Cells marked Not verified are gaps we could not close at source — we publish them rather than copy a figure from another comparison. How we test.
One by one
Perplexity AI · Free · Pro (see official page)
The only one where sources arrive on every answer by design — retrieval is the product rather than a feature. Check the citations anyway: they exist on every claim but do not always support it.
OpenAI · Free · Plus $20/mo · Pro tier above it
Searches and drafts in the same session, which is the practical advantage over a dedicated answer engine. Citation discipline is weaker — it will assert without linking.
Google · Free · Google AI Plus / Pro / Ultra (varies by country)
Search-grounded and free, and the result can go straight into a Google Doc. Citations are partial.
Microsoft · Bundled with Microsoft 365 tiers — check which product
Searches and writes in place inside Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Citations are inconsistent and model quality is not competitive.
xAI · API $2.00 in / $6.00 out per 1M tokens
Current only with search switched on — with it off, the 1 February 2026 training cutoff shows immediately. Cheapest premium output here at $6 per 1M tokens.
Mistral AI · Free · Pro $14.99/mo · Team $24.99/user · Students $5.99
Searches, and is the only EU-hosted-by-default option in this comparison. Per-model context windows are unpublished.
The honest part
Claude has no live web search at all — it is the clearest gap in an otherwise strong tool, and pairing it with a search tool is a common working pattern. DeepSeek and Meta AI search only partially or inconsistently, so we do not list them as search tools. MultipleChat depends entirely on which underlying model you route the prompt to.
Questions
No. Claude has no live web search, which is the main reason people look for an alternative to it. Everything else in this list searches, though only Perplexity attaches sources to every answer.
Perplexity, by a clear margin, because sourcing is the design goal rather than a feature bolted on. That said, verify the citations — in our testing they were always present but did not always support the specific claim.
Yes — Gemini, Perplexity and Mistral Le Chat all search on their free tiers, and Microsoft Copilot has a limited free tier that searches. Gemini's is the most capable free option of the four.