I pay for both. But when friends ask me "which one should I sign up for?", my answer has shifted drastically over the last six months.
In the early days, ChatGPT was the undisputed king. Today? It's complicated. I spent the last week forcing myself to use the free tier of both services exclusively for my daily work (coding, emails, summarizing docs). Here is what I found.
The "Killer Feature": Context
This is where Google simply bullies OpenAI.
Google Gemini's free tier gives you a 1 Million Token context window (on the 1.5 Flash model). That number is hard to visualize, so let me explain what it meant for my week:
- I uploaded a 1-hour video recording of a meeting. Gemini watched it and summarized it.
- I uploaded a zip file containing my entire React project. Gemini told me where the bug was in `App.js` based on a change in `utils.js`.
ChatGPT's free tier choked on both of these. It simply can't handle that much data at once. If you work with long documents, Gemini wins. Flawless victory.
Reasoning & Coding
Here is where ChatGPT fights back.
While Gemini handles more data, ChatGPT often understands the nuance of instructions better. When I asked both to "Write a sarcastic email to my landlord," ChatGPT nailed the tone immediately. Gemini felt a bit... robotic? Safe?
For coding specifically, GPT-4o (which you get limited access to on the free tier) tends to write cleaner, more Pythonic code on the first try. Gemini 1.5 Flash is fast, but I find myself hitting "Regenerate" more often because it hallucinates libraries that don't exist.
The "Vibe" Check
ChatGPT feels like a product. The app is polished, the voice mode is scarily realistic (like, "Her" movie realistic), and the history search just works.
Gemini integration with Google Workspace is its superpower. I can type `@Google Drive` inside the chat and pull up my files. It saves me tabs. But the UI still feels a bit cluttered compared to OpenAI's minimalism.
My Final Verdict
If I had to keep only one free account?
I'd keep Gemini.
Why? Because the 1M context window enables workflows that are simply impossible on ChatGPT. I can get "good enough" writing from anywhere, but being able to chat with a 500-page PDF for free is a utility I can't give up.
However, I still keep ChatGPT on my phone's home screen. For quick questions and voice chat, it's still the king of convenience.