Independent AI tools guide

AI Reference Library

A free, ad-free field guide to the AI tools people actually use to chat, draw, film, speak, compose, code, transcribe, search, automate, and model in 3D. Popularity is cited, not invented.

Data last checked: · What changed

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12 chatbotsLLMs & chatbotsChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Copilot, DeepSeek, and other assistants people actually open.Open guide →12 image toolsImage generationMidjourney, ChatGPT Images, Ideogram, Flux, Firefly, Leonardo, and related image models.Open guide →10 video toolsVideo generationRunway, Pika, Kling, Luma, Sora, Veo, Hailuo, and other text-to-video tools.Open guide →10 voice toolsVoice, TTS & cloningElevenLabs, OpenAI TTS, PlayAI, Cartesia, Hume, Descript, and related voice tools.Open guide →8 music toolsMusic generationSuno, Udio, Stable Audio, Google Lyria, AIVA, and other song and score tools.Open guide →12 coding assistantsCoding assistantsCursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Windsurf, Codex, and other coding tools.Open guide →10 transcription toolsTranscription & STTWhisper, Deepgram, AssemblyAI, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and meeting notetakers.Open guide →9 search toolsAI searchPerplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Grok, You.com, and related answer engines.Open guide →10 agent toolsAgents & automationChatGPT agents, Claude computer use, Zapier, Make, n8n, Lindy, Manus, and related tools.Open guide →8 3D tools3D generationMeshy, Tripo, Rodin, CSM, Spline, Hunyuan3D, and other image-to-3D tools.Open guide →

How to use this site

Search above to jump straight to any product’s row, or open a section. Each section opens as a compact, scrollable comparison chart — one row per product — that you can filter, search, and sort. Stars are a 1–5 popularity judgment with a source caption. Cost uses a Free / $ / $$ / $$$ / $$$$ scale with a source caption, rated on the typical individual paid plan most people buy. “Best for” labels are editorial. Official-site links are not affiliate links.

Where the numbers come from

Web-traffic figures are third-party estimates of website visits, not app sessions or unique people. Chatbot shares among seven assistants (October 2026) come from Similarweb: ChatGPT 55.7%, Gemini 24.2%, Claude 11.5%, DeepSeek 3.4%, Grok 2.2%, Copilot 1.1%, Perplexity 0.8%. Most other visit counts are Similarweb estimates for October 2026, as published by SeekTool. A few use Semrush estimates for September 2026 from Tako’s a16z Top 100 table, GitHub star counts, or OpenRouter token rankings. Cost figures come from official vendor pricing pages, checked in November 2026, and are rated on the typical individual paid plan most people buy. If a product has no usable source, the caption says “Editorial estimate.”

What this is not

This is not a vendor ranking you should buy from blindly. It is a starting map for people learning the AI tools landscape. Model versions change quickly; confirm current pricing and terms with the vendor.