ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini vs Gemma 4
An honest, plain-English comparison of the major AI models. What each does best, what it costs, and which one is right for your work.
"Which AI should I use?" is the single most common question in my training sessions. The short answer: all of these are strong. The longer answer depends on what you actually do with it.
This comparison is based on daily use across all four model families. I build software, run training sessions, and advise businesses. Updated April 2026.
The 30-Second Summary
The most popular. Best all-rounder with the biggest ecosystem. Great for coding, creative work, and image generation.
Best for long documents, careful analysis, and nuanced writing. Tends to be more accurate and follows complex instructions well.
Best for research and Google Workspace integration. Built-in web access. Good for people already in the Google ecosystem.
Best open-weight option. Built from the same tech as Gemini 3. Runs locally on your hardware. Free to use indefinitely.
Head-to-Head Comparison
Pricing (April 2026)
Gemma 4 is free to use - it's an open-weight model you run yourself. No subscription needed.
Running models locally: Gemma 4 and beyond
Beyond the three big hosted models, you can now run powerful models on your own hardware for free. The two most notable:
The most capable open-weight model to date. Built from the same research as Gemini 3. Comes in multiple sizes (from 2B to 27B parameters). Apache 2.0 license. Runs well on consumer GPUs.
Meta's latest open model family. Scout and Maverick sizes available. Competitive with GPT-4 class models on many benchmarks. Good for fine-tuning and local deployment.
Running models locally requires technical setup (Ollama, LM Studio, or similar tools) and a capable machine. The free courses at Free Classes cover the cloud versions first, but the concepts transfer directly.
My honest recommendation
Try the free tier of all three hosted models for one week. Use them for your actual work, not toy examples. Then pay for the one that fits best.
In my experience across hundreds of training participants:
- Most business professionals end up preferring Claude for writing and analysis, ChatGPT for everything else
- Educators often prefer Claude for its careful, nuanced responses
- Small business owners who live in Google Workspace love Gemini for the integration
- Creative professionals tend to prefer ChatGPT for versatility and image generation
- Developers and technical users should also look at Gemma 4 for local experimentation and fine-tuning
- Everyone should have at least two AI tools they know how to use, because no single tool is best at everything
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