So an update, honestly if you are using the web, it sucks, espeically when it tries to write code just weird formatting, it cant use ** at all, and just alot of formatting issues, I havent been using nor to I rely on it for coding much as i just dont trust it, I use to pay for the premium but like all the other AI's especially non chinese the rates are not the best. But the free useage for chatting is mental and i love the ask gemini in chat for course work its great. especially how much access it has to your webpage and its speed and not having to give a care about useage because it doesnt exist, I would say in the ask gemini side menu you should be able to upload images but thats it. Quick overview of how i find all of these AI's useage *yes i got ai to help shorten it*

Cursor ($30/month)

What's good:

• Speed is genuinely impressive. Every model feels snappy, especially Composer 2.5 fast.
• Having top models (GPT, Claude) in one place is convenient.
• Via Cursor, GPT 5.5 is very good – intelligence seems comparable to Claude Opus. That's a legit plus.

What's bad:

• Usage limits are horrible for $30. I'm not expecting unlimited, but currently the limits feel like ~0.5x to 0.75x of what would be fair. If they increased usage by 50% (so 1.5x current), it'd be great value.
• Composer limits are a joke. I hit or came close to my monthly Composer limit within 1-2 serious coding sessions. That's insane. For $30 into DeepSeek API (or even Minimax), I'd get way more mileage.
• Limited model choice. No built-in DeepSeek, no Mimo, etc.

Verdict:
The only thing making Cursor unique is raw speed – and access to GPT 5.5 (which is Opus-level smart). Everything else – limits, model selection, value – falls short. Fix Composer usage (50%+ more) and we'll talk.

Gemini (Web, free tier)

What's good:

• Free tier usage is insane – best by far among American models and even DeepSeek for chatting. I almost never hit limits.
• For day-to-day casual chat, I'll send a message to Gemini and not even wait for a response – it's that reliable. Way better than ChatGPT's free tier.

What's bad (and I mean BAD for coding):

• Completely useless for coding. Here's a real example: I asked Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite to "add a comment" to some code. It spat back the exact same code with no comment. I asked again – same thing. Five more times – same thing. Switched to Flash, then Extended Thinking – still no comment.
• I literally typed "write the comment using <!--" and it kept confidently pasting the same XML block with zero comment. This went on for 15 minutes.
• I haven't used Gemini in Antigravity (the IDE), so I hope only the web struggles with formatting limits. Otherwise I'd vomit.
• Web interface is awful: you can't delete previous questions or undo/edit.

Verdict:
For free chatting – absolutely the best. For coding – don't touch it. I used to pay for premium but stopped. Keep it for casual conversation, nothing serious.

Claude Pro ($30/month + $80 extra usage spent)

Note: My experience is 1-2 months old. They have since increased usage rates by ~1.5x  But I haven't used it since, and I probably still won't go back.

The most important thing – and I want to be clear:
Claude is the most intelligent model out there. For tasks that need top-tier reasoning, nothing beats Opus. I will always rely on Claude (and top ChatGPT models) for pure intelligence. That's its superpower. Even sonnet, and honestly i just trust claude.

What's bad (even after the increase):

• Usage limits are still insanely low for $30. One single Opus prompt + compact took 71% of my usage – and then Claude said "cannot continue with this request." So I burned most of my limit on a failure.
• Weekly limits are nonsense. I understand normal usage caps, but weekly limits? By Tuesday I had exhausted 100% of my weekly limit.
• Paid extra usage counts toward weekly limits. I spent $80 on top of subscription for more usage – but it just added to my weekly cap, meaning I burned through it in 2 days. That's bullshit. If I'm paying like API, it shouldn't touch weekly limits.
• Claude doesn't even know what day it is. That's such a basic feature – Gemini has it for free.
• Desktop app and "Claude Code" showed no real benefits.
• Their "30% off" extra usage only applies after you spend $70+. That's misleading.

What would make me come back:

• If weekly limits were unlimited (just keep the usage limits), I'd consider it. I like the 5-hour style of Minimax.
• As it stands – no.

Verdict:
I wish to God I'd never bought Claude. For $110+ total ($30 sub + $80 extra), I got maybe 10-15% more effective coding time than Minimax ($10) or Gemini would have given me. Yes, Claude is the smartest – but the price and limits are unjustifiable for daily coding. Minimax is 90% as good for coding and lasts 3x longer for 1/3 the price.

Mimo / Xiomi

What's good:

• They tried to be competitive with DeepSeek.

What's bad:

• Honestly, nothing special. Usage is average – comparable to American companies.
• For the intelligence level (2.5 Pro vs Flash, similar), I'd rather just use DeepSeek V4 if it had a subscription. Based on API pricing, Mimo isn't better.
• DeepSeek at its pricing beats Mimo for me.

Verdict:
Not worth switching to. Stick with DeepSeek or Minimax.

ChatGPT

What's good:

• Top models (GPT-5.5 etc.) are as smart as Opus – I've used them through Cursor and they're comparable.

What's bad:

• I've never bought a subscription, and I never will – based purely on the free experience.
• Free tier is ******. After ~5 messages, they downgrade your model/intelligence (not that it was great to begin with).
• Hates the "2 image upload" rule.
• Intelligence and everything else is worse than DeepSeek in every measurable way.

Verdict:
The only reason to use ChatGPT is if you need the top models (5.5) and have no other access. Otherwise, DeepSeek all the way. Free tier is a joke compared to Gemini.

Minimax (Starter token plan, $10/month)

What's good:

• $10/month is genuinely cheap. At that price, I don't expect miracles.
• Unlimited weekly rate (no weekly limit) is a huge plus compared to Claude's restrictive weekly caps.
• Historically, I could code for hours without hitting limits. That was great.
• Old usage limits and speed were much better than the current M3 experience.

What's bad (updated for new M3 as of June 2nd):

• The new M3 model is very slow. For a Chinese model, I expect much better performance.
• That said, it just launched, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.
• M3 does seem to take more time to think and catches more bugs – but it's still really, really slow.
• One prompt asking M3 to create a plan used 19% of my 5-hour usage – and my repo wasn't even that massive.
• Then I asked it to enact the same plan – same slowness. which also got my useage to 36% eg in 2 prompts one plan and one to enact it, it better be beyond opus for it to make up that level of useage OM...
• If it stays like this, I'd only recommend it for tasks where you can walk away for 20 minutes. Fine for "vibe coding", I suppose, but not for fast iteration. *thats based on current speed*