Top Generative AI Models Comparison: ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok & Qwen

The generative AI (Gen AI) space in 2025 has become a battleground of innovation. Top models like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, and Qwen are setting new benchmarks in artificial intelligence.

These advanced large language models (LLMs) and multimodal AIs are now deeply impacting various industries. Whether it is automated content creation, software development, research analysis, or customer support—these tools are becoming daily essentials for businesses, professionals, and developers.

Each AI model comes with its own set of special strengths. For example, Claude is known for its powerful coding and structured responses. Grok is built for deep reasoning and real-time thinking. Perplexity is ideal when it comes to fact-based research with real-time search integration.

This blog aims to give you a clear and deep comparison of all these top models. We will look at their architectures (how they are built), performance across different tasks, pricing and access, and ideal use cases for each model.

Overview of Generative AI Models in 2025

Generative AI models in 2025 are advanced neural networks trained on huge datasets. These models can create human-like text, code, images, audio, and even video. Most of them are built using transformer architectures, which help them understand language, structure, and logic effectively.

Even though all models follow the same basic design, they vary in size, features, and what they’re best used for. Here are some important characteristics that define generative AI models today:

• Scale: Many models now have hundreds of billions of parameters. For example, OpenAI’s GPT?4.5 and Google’s Gemini 2.5 are trained with massive compute, enabling deeper understanding and creativity. [Source]
• Context Windows: Some models can now handle up to 1–2 million tokens in a single prompt. This means they can read and analyse long documents, full codebases, or complex instructions. Claude 3 Opus supports 200K tokens, while Gemini 2.5 and Grok 3 support up to 1M tokens. [Gemini Source]
• Multimodality: Many models support more than just text. They can also work with images, voice, video, and documents. For example, ChatGPT can describe images and generate them using DALL·E, while Gemini 2.5 handles image + text + voice inputs. [Source]
• Reasoning: Modern models like GPT?4.5 and Claude 4 use advanced “chain-of-thought” reasoning—this helps them break down tough problems and solve them step-by-step, especially in coding, logic puzzles, or decision-making. [Source]

Real-World Example: A legal firm in the US used Claude 3 Opus to analyse 400+ legal contracts (in PDF format). Using its long context ability, it identified missing clauses, duplicate risks, and inconsistencies—saving weeks of manual review. [Case Study]

In the next sections, we will look at each major model in detail—including ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, and Qwen—explaining their core features, ideal use cases, pricing, and performance benchmarks.

1. ChatGPT (OpenAI)

Overview

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, remains a top AI model in 2025. It has evolved from GPT?3 to GPT?4, and now to GPT?4.5 and o3?mini models. Known for its flexibility and strong performance, ChatGPT is widely used for conversations, writing, coding, and data analysis. It also supports multimodal tasks like image generation (using DALL·E?3), vision input, and voice chats through its mobile app.

Key Features

• Architecture: Based on a dense transformer architecture. GPT?4.5 supports up to 1 million tokens, while o3?mini supports up to 200,000 tokens.
• Multimodality: Users can interact with text, images, and voice. Voice chat is available in mobile apps, and DALL·E 3 handles image generation.
• Web Access: ChatGPT Plus includes real-time browsing using "Browse with Bing".
• Memory: Remembers user preferences and past chats to give more personalised responses over time.
• Reasoning: The o3?mini version is designed for fast, high-quality logic and is effective for coding and science-based tasks.

Strengths

• All-Rounder: Can handle a wide range of tasks like answering questions, writing blogs, creating emails, and even analysing PDFs.
• Creative Output: Very strong in visual tasks—can turn a photo into artistic styles like oil painting or cartoon using DALL·E 3.
• Used in Enterprises: Companies like BBVA report 80% of their employees save time using ChatGPT for work tasks. [Source]
• Voice Interaction: Voice conversations feel natural and human-like, though sometimes it might interrupt or speak over the user.

Weaknesses

• Factual Mistakes: May still give wrong or outdated answers, so it’s important to double-check facts.
• Paid Access: The best features are behind a ?1,700/month (approx. $20) ChatGPT Plus plan or higher enterprise plans.
• Tone Limitations: Compared to Claude, responses can sometimes feel robotic or overly formal.

Pricing

• Free Tier: Includes GPT?3.5 access with basic features (no browsing or image support).
• ChatGPT Plus: $20/month includes GPT?4.5, DALL·E, browsing, vision input, and memory features.
• Enterprise/Pro: Custom pricing for teams and businesses. API pricing (as of July 2025): GPT?4o is ~$3 per million input tokens and ~$10 per million output tokens. [Source]

Ideal Use Cases

• Daily content creation, blog writing, idea generation.
• Creative image-based tasks like design mockups or social media posts.
• Business use in support automation, dashboards, or internal tools.

ChatGPT Pricing Plans (2025)

Below is a simple overview of ChatGPT pricing plans for different users—from free access to business and education plans.

2. DeepSeek (DeepSeek AI)

Overview

DeepSeek is a China-based AI company that gained global attention in January 2025 with the release of its R1 and V3 models. These models stood out for delivering performance similar to GPT?4 at a much lower development cost (around $6 million). R1 is open-source, while V3 is commercial but still affordable. [Source]

Key Features

• Architecture: Based on a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model, which gives faster performance and lower computing costs. [Paper]
• Reasoning: R1 performs well in maths, logic, and coding tasks. It scored 97% on the MATH-500 benchmark, outperforming several Western models. [Source]
• Open-Source: DeepSeek R1 is fully open-source under MIT license and available on HuggingFace. [Model]
• Cost-Efficiency: API pricing starts as low as $0.0008 per 1,000 tokens—much cheaper than most competitors. [Pricing]
• Limitations: Currently text-only. No support for image, audio, or voice input.

Strengths

• Low Cost: Free web and mobile app with generous usage. Ideal for students, startups, and small businesses.
• STEM Tasks: Excellent in coding, debugging, and maths-based tasks like algorithms or financial models.
• Reasoning Steps: Shows step-by-step explanations, which improves transparency and trust.
• Open Access: Developers and researchers can modify or fine-tune the model as needed.

Weaknesses

• Topic Censorship: Avoids sensitive political topics (e.g., Tiananmen Square), limiting some discussions. [Source]
• No Live Browsing: Web access is limited or delayed due to infrastructure load.
• Security Concerns: Some past concerns over privacy and data safety for high-risk or regulated industries.
• Limited Creativity: Not ideal for writing stories, poetry, or image generation.

Pricing

• Free Tier: Full access to DeepSeek R1 and V3 via web and mobile app.
• API: Starts at $0.0008 per 1K tokens (text only). Output token pricing is higher but still cheaper than GPT-based models.

Ideal Use Cases

• Technical tasks like coding, logic puzzles, and debugging.
• Data science or financial modeling requiring strong math support.
• Researchers or startups needing powerful AI at low cost.

Real-World Example

A financial analytics startup in India used DeepSeek R1 to automate spreadsheet calculations, financial projections, and logic-based Excel formulas. With token costs under ?5,000/month, they achieved GPT?4 level performance at a fraction of the price—making it a perfect fit for their lean operations.

DeepSeek AI Pricing Plans (2025)

DeepSeek offers powerful AI models at very low cost, including open-source access and simple API pricing.

3. Claude (Anthropic)

Overview

Claude is a family of AI models developed by Anthropic. The latest version, Claude 4, was released in May 2025. It includes three variants:

• Haiku: Fast and lightweight
• Sonnet: Balanced for daily use
• Opus: Powerful model for complex tasks

Claude is known for safety, ethical alignment, and long-form reasoning. It is widely used for coding, document analysis, and professional writing. [Source]

Key Features

• Architecture: Dense transformer with up to 200,000-token context window.
• Safety: Uses Anthropic’s “Constitutional AI” to reduce bias and harmful responses. [Source]
• Coding: Performs well in large code tasks—like debugging 100-line Python scripts.
• Text Analysis: Good at reading and summarising long documents, such as legal reports or contracts.

Strengths

• Human-like Answers: Gives natural, thoughtful responses—great for writing and analysis.
• Advanced Coding: Outperforms ChatGPT in many coding and software tasks. [Source]
• Ethical Responses: Focuses on safe and responsible outputs.
• Adaptable Style: Can match the user’s tone and style in writing.

Weaknesses

• No Images or Voice: Claude supports only text. No image generation or voice chat.
• Limited Access: Free tier has message limits and may not be available in all countries.
• Less Creative: Not the best for imaginative tasks like stories or cultural content.

Pricing

• Free Tier: Limited access to Claude Sonnet in supported regions.
• Claude Pro: $20/month (approx ?1,700) for faster replies and priority access.
• API via AWS Bedrock:
  • Sonnet: ~$3 per million input tokens, ~$15 per million output tokens
  • Opus: ~$15 per million input, ~$75 per million output
  [Pricing Info]

Ideal Use Cases

• Advanced coding and debugging tasks
• Long document summarisation (legal, academic, contracts)
• Professional or ethical writing requirements

Real-World Example

At launch, Claude Opus was used to automatically refactor a large open-source codebase over a 7-hour session. It handled thousands of steps without error—saving developers days of work. Companies like Rakuten use Claude for bug fixes and contract analysis. [Source]

Claude AI Pricing Plans (2025)

Anthropic offers different Claude plans based on usage—free, pro for individuals, and advanced options via API.

4. Perplexity AI

Overview

Perplexity AI, founded by Aravind Srinivas and team, launched its conversational search engine on December?7,?2022. Unlike typical chatbots, it combines real-time web access and large language models (LLMs) like GPT?4.1, Claude, Gemini, and its own Sonar and R1?1776 to deliver fast, cited answers. [Source]

Key Features

• Real-time Web Search: Fetches data live from the internet, giving current answers including academic papers, news, or Reddit posts. [How it works]
• Model Selection: Users can choose from various LLMs—or let Perplexity auto-select the best model (like GPT?4.1, Gemini, Sonar). [Details]
• Citations Included: Every answer shows exact sources, making fact-checking easy and transparent. [News]
• Deep Research Mode: The “Pro Search” feature builds multi-step plans, queries web layers, and delivers structured reports with charts or links. [More]

Strengths

• Great for Research: Trusted by students, journalists, and professionals for accurate, cited answers. [Review]
• Higher Accuracy: Produces better factual synthesis than many chatbots like ChatGPT, especially when sources matter. [Comparison]
• Flexible Model Usage: Let system auto-route queries, or manually choose best-fit LLM for your need. [Insight]
• Growing Popularity: Processes nearly 30?million queries daily, valued around US?$14?billion in mid?2025. [Growth]

Weaknesses

• Not Creative-Focused: Better for facts than storytelling or imaginative tasks.
• Not Built for Team Collaboration: Lacks integrated productivity tools like shared threads or team editing workflows.
• Some Source Errors: Studies show occasional source citation errors or fake references. [Study]

Pricing

• Free Tier: Basic access to multiple models and limited searches per day.
• Pro Plan: ~$20/month unlocks advanced “Deep Research” features, full model choice, and priority speed. [Info]

Ideal Use Cases

• Academic or professional research with verified references.
• Competitive intelligence or industry trend analysis.
• Quick fact-checking and citation-driven answers.

Real-World Example

A journalist used Perplexity AI Pro to research a breaking story on AI regulations. The tool automatically pulled quotes from legal documents and news reports, summarised key points, and offered direct source links—saving hours of manual searching and ensuring accuracy.

Perplexity AI Pricing Plans (2025)

Perplexity AI offers advanced research tools and access to multiple AI models with both free and pro options.

5. Gemini (Google)

Overview

Gemini 2.5 Pro, developed by Google DeepMind, is a powerful multimodal AI model released in 2025. It’s deeply integrated with Google products like Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Android, and Vertex AI. With support for up to 1–2 million tokens, it is ideal for long tasks like document summarising, image analysis, or video generation. [Source]

Key Features

• Multimodal Architecture: Understands and generates content using text, images, audio, and video.
• Context Window: Can process up to 1 million tokens (2 million rollout in progress). [Source]
• Deep Think Mode: Improves reasoning for complex prompts, available in Pro/Ultra plans. [News]
• Web Access: Offers live Google Search integration even on free tier.
• Veo 3: Generates 8-second 720p videos from text or image prompts (Pro/Ultra users). [Video Tool]

Strengths

• Multimodal Support: Works with images, video, text, and PDFs—ideal for visual projects.
• Google Integration: Seamless use within Gmail, Docs, Android, etc.
• Free Access: Web access and basic tools available for free.
• Content Creation: Excellent for making visuals, charts, and short videos.

Weaknesses

• Response Style: Sometimes short and robotic—less engaging than ChatGPT or Claude.
• Historical Facts: Can mix up timelines in older topics.
• Feature Lock: Veo 3 and Deep Think only in paid plans.

Pricing

• Free Tier: Gemini 2.5 with search and basic image/text support.
• Gemini Pro: $20/month (includes Deep Think, Veo 3, and faster speed).
• Gemini Ultra: $249/month (includes longer context, advanced reasoning, and early features).
• API Access: Available via Vertex AI, charged per input/output token. [API Info]

Ideal Use Cases

• Image, audio, and video generation from prompts.
• Google Workspace tasks (emails, spreadsheets, docs).
• Analysing long reports, documents, or research papers.

Real-World Example

A school in the US used Gemini 2.5 to convert diagrams and textbook content into explainer videos using Veo 3. This helped teachers save time and students understand topics visually—all while staying inside Google Classroom tools. [Example]

Gemini AI (by Google) Pricing Plans – 2025

Google’s Gemini offers powerful multimodal AI tools with both free and pro plans. It works smoothly inside Google products like Docs, Gmail, and Search.

6. Grok (xAI)

Overview

Grok 3 is a generative AI model by Elon Musk’s xAI, launched in February 2025. Trained on the powerful Colossus supercluster, it is designed to be a “truth?seeking AI companion.” It shines in reasoning, coding, and processing real?time information from X (formerly Twitter). [Source]

Key Features

• Architecture: Reasoning?focused model with “Think mode” for step-by-step problem solving. [Benchmark]
• X Integration: Real-time access to posts on X for up-to-date insights and sentiment trends. [Source]
• Multimodal: Supports text and high-quality image generation (photorealistic).
• Think Mode: Evaluates different solution paths before giving a final answer. Improves logical clarity. [Source]

Performance & Pricing

• Top Benchmark Scores: Scored ~93% on AIME and ~85% on GPQA, outperforming GPT?4o in several reasoning tests. [Source]
• API Pricing: ~$3 per million input tokens and ~$15 per million output tokens. [Pricing]

Strengths

• High Reasoning Ability: Best-in-class logic and multi-step problem solving.
• Free Premium Features: DeepSearch, Think mode, and image generation available even on free plan. [Launch Coverage]
• Real-Time Insight: Integrates current X posts for sentiment and news—unique among LLMs.
• Engaging Personality: Offers witty and informal responses some users find refreshing. [Review]

Weaknesses

• Platform Limitations: Deep reliance on X limits broader adoption outside that ecosystem.
• Safety Controversies: Past incidents included antisemitic responses and system prompt flaws. Critics highlighted uncontrolled content behavior. [Controversy]
• Coding Integration: Not as smooth as Claude for code-generation workflows.

Pricing & Access

• Free Tier: Includes Think Mode, DeepSearch, image outputs, and limited reasoning quota.
• SuperGrok / Premium+ on X: $30–40/month; includes full access to Grok 3 & API tools. [User Feedback]
• API via xAI: Same token pricing with full access for SuperGrok or enterprise users. [API Info]

Ideal Use Cases

• Reasoning-heavy tasks: math problems, logic puzzles, strategic planning.
• Real-time research: sentiment analysis or trend writing based on X posts.
• Creative customers wanting a responsive, witty chatbot with image outputs.

Real-World Example

A tech blogger used Grok 3’s DeepSearch to monitor sentiment on AI regulation by analyzing thousands of X posts in real time. The model then generated a summary with quoted snapshots and reasoning steps—saving hours of manual analysis.

Grok AI Pricing Plans (2025)

Grok, built by xAI and integrated with X (formerly Twitter), offers advanced reasoning tools and real-time insights. It has a free tier and premium options for heavy users.

7. Qwen (Alibaba)

Overview

Developed by Alibaba Cloud, Qwen 2.5 and Qwen3 are powerful multimodal AI models launched in 2025. Trained on over 20–36 trillion tokens across 119 languages and dialects, these models support text, images, audio, and video, with a context window of up to 128K tokens. Smaller variants are open-source, while full versions are accessible via Alibaba Cloud API. [Source] [News]

Key Features

• Architecture: Mixture-of-Experts model (Qwen2.5-X) with multimodal ability via its VL and Omni variants. Smaller open-source versions available. [Report]
• Multilingual Support: Understands and generates content in over 100 languages, including Chinese, English, Spanish, Arabic, and many dialects. [Info]
• Context Window: Qwen 2.5 supports 128K tokens; Qwen3 models support long-context reasoning with up to 128K or more. [Qwen2.5] [Qwen3]
• Benchmark Performance: Qwen3 matches or surpasses GPT?4o, DeepSeek?R1, and Gemini 2.5 Pro in reasoning, coding, and multilingual tasks. [Qwen3 Release]

Strengths

• Strong Multilingual Reach: Ideal for markets across Asia and global users needing high-quality translation and language understanding.
• Efficient and Fast: Strong throughput in real-time use cases on Alibaba Cloud.
• Domain Expertise Support: Excels in applications like e-commerce analytics, chemistry, and materials science.
• Openness: Many models, including Qwen2.5?VL and Qwen3, are open-source and available on HuggingFace and ModelScope. [Qwen3 Embedding]

Weaknesses

• Regional Bias: Optimized for Chinese and Asian language users; less popular in Western AI ecosystems.
• Smaller Ecosystem: Fewer third?party apps and integrations compared to ChatGPT or Gemini.
• Creative Limitation: Less suited for storytelling or cultural content compared to more narrative-focused models.

Pricing & Access

• Free Tier: Access to smaller open-source Qwen2.5 and Qwen2.5?VL models with limited usage.
• API via Alibaba Cloud: Paid access to full Qwen2.5?VL and Qwen3 models—pricing starts around $0.8 input / $3 output per million tokens, depending on variant. [Pricing Info]

Ideal Use Cases

• Multilingual content generation and translation workflows.
• E-commerce analytics and customer support in Asian markets.
• Scientific or industrial data tasks (e.g., materials science, chemistry).

Real-World Example

A predictive retail platform in India used Qwen2.5?VL to analyse customer feedback and sales data across English, Hindi, and Chinese. The model handled long product reviews and generated multilingual summaries—improving customer insights and saving manual translation costs.

Qwen AI (Alibaba) Pricing Plans – 2025

Qwen models are developed by Alibaba Cloud and offer strong multilingual and multimodal capabilities. You can use smaller models for free or access advanced models via API.

Choosing the Right Model

There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to AI models. Your choice should depend on your specific needs, technical skills, and budget. Below is a quick guide:

• General-Purpose & Creative Tasks: ChatGPT is perfect for daily use, writing, design ideas, and conversation. It also remembers your preferences and supports images and voice.
• Cost-Sensitive & Technical Tasks: DeepSeek is a great option for developers and students. It handles maths, logic, and code well — and is free or very low-cost.
• Coding & Ethical Writing: Claude is ideal for writing contracts, long reports, and debugging code safely with structured, polite answers.
• Research & Fact-Checking: Perplexity gives reliable, citation-backed answers with sources — great for academic, legal, or competitive research.
• Multimodal & Google Ecosystem: Gemini fits best for those who use Gmail, Docs, Android, or need image/video generation with text understanding.
• Real-Time News & Reasoning: Grok works well if you need live updates from X (Twitter), or want smart, logical answers with a fun twist.
• Multilingual & Niche Domains: Qwen is strong in Chinese and Asian languages, and is suitable for industries like chemistry, e-commerce, or translation services.

Each of these models has strengths in different areas — choose based on what you want to solve, automate, or explore.

Conclusion

The AI landscape in 2025 offers more choice than ever. Each model is good at something specific:

• ChatGPT is still the most versatile — great for everyday writing, ideas, and business use.
• DeepSeek brings powerful coding and reasoning tools at almost no cost.
• Claude is the safest and most logical choice for coding, documents, and ethical replies.
• Perplexity is best for research, citations, and getting updated information.
• Gemini leads with image, video, and audio tasks — especially if you're already using Google tools.
• Grok gives real-time insights through X (Twitter), and is fun to interact with.
• Qwen is best for Chinese, multilingual, or science/e-commerce-based projects.

Pro tip: You don’t have to pick just one. Many professionals today use a mix — for example:

• ChatGPT for general content
• Claude for analysis and writing
• Perplexity for research
• DeepSeek for coding or math-heavy tasks

As these AI tools continue to grow, it’s smart to stay updated and try free versions. Choose what fits your work and always double-check critical information. The right mix of models can save you time, boost productivity, and open new creative possibilities.

References

1. Creatoreconomy.so, "An Opinionated Guide on Which AI Model to Use in 2025," March?12,?2025.
2. Collabnix.com, "AI Models Comparison 2025: Claude, Grok, GPT & More," July?1,?2025.
3. TheGuardian.com, "DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Grok … which is the best AI assistant? We put them to the test," February?1,?2025.
4. DataCamp.com, "DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT: How Do They Compare?" January?30,?2025.
5. WSJ.com, "ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. DeepSeek: The Battle to Be My AI Work Assistant," 2025.
6. Creatoreconomy.so, "ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini: The Best AI Model for Each Use Case in 2025," June?4,?2025.
7. EconomicTimes.IndiaTimes.com, "Move Over ChatGPT - These AI Tools Are Redefining the Rule," August?1,?2025.