General chat alternatives

### Claude

Strong reasoning, long context, and better instruction following for complex tasks.

### Gemini

Tight Google integration, large context windows, and fast response times.

### Perplexity

Real-time web search with cited answers, useful for research-heavy chat.

Coding-focused alternatives

### Claude Code

Terminal agent for end-to-end software engineering tasks.

### GitHub Copilot Chat

Chat directly inside your IDE with repository context.

Local / private alternatives

### Ollama + Open WebUI

Run local models in a chat interface on your own hardware.

### Jan

Polished local chat app with built-in model management.

When to switch