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10 ChatGPT Alternatives for Students to Consider in 2025
Writing with AI
10 min read
10 ChatGPT Alternatives for Students to Consider in 2025
I’ve gathered the 10 best ChatGPT alternatives for students struggling with academic writing. Check out my detailed overview to learn more!
Written by
Catherine B.
Published on
Jun 10, 2025
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You know how it goes when you use ChatGPT for academic writing. You have to fact-check every sentence because of rampant hallucinations. You have to find all the references yourself since ChatGPT makes up nonexistent citations. What’s worse, you have to waste time painstakingly adapting the output to your particular context.
ChatGPT may be the most popular AI tool out there, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best one for students. Yes, it’s free, but so are multiple alternatives to ChatGPT for academic writing.
I’ve reviewed all those AI tools to find the best ChatGPT alternatives 2025 has to offer. Keep reading to see how tools like StudyPro can become your next favorite AI writing tool.
10 Best ChatGPT Alternatives: Your Snapshot
Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
StudyPro | All-in-one writing assistance with built-in AI features |
Perplexity AI | Web search with traceable sourcing |
Elicit | Academic database search and systematic review writing |
QuillBot | Versatile AI-powered assistance for writing |
Grammarly | Brainstorming, outlining, and enhancing original writing |
Gemini | Study help, online search, personal AI assistance |
Microsoft Copilot | Native Microsoft 365 integration |
Khanmingo | AI-powered personal tutoring |
NotebookLM | Multimodal file analysis and study guide generation |
Claude | Ethical AI capabilities |
10 Best ChatGPT Alternatives for Academic Needs
After some digging and testing, I identified the top 10 ChatGPT alternatives. Some of them are multipurpose AI chatbots. Others help you learn or generate drafts that follow the tenets of the best writing hacks for students. Read my breakdown to find the right Chat GPT alternative for your needs.
StudyPro
Pricing: Free (during beta)
Best for: All-in-one writing assistance with built-in AI features
What is StudyPro?
As a ChatGPT alternative for academic task completion, the StudyPro AI writer can help you generate content, paraphrase your writing, and more. Its AI model is trained only on academic sources and quality papers. So, StudyPro can easily match the intent of your prompt and adapt its output to the selected academic level and paper type.
Why it’s great for students:
If you’re looking for a free ChatGPT alternative for research, writing, and editing, StudyPro is the AI tool for you. It’s more than an AI writing tool: it comes with all the features you use while writing, from a plagiarism detector to a text editor. No more endless switching between the tabs!
Key features:
- AI Writer trained exclusively on real-world assignments and academic papers
- Built-in plagiarism and AI checkers
- AI-powered paraphraser for enhancing original writing
- Professional text editor with cloud sync
Perplexity AI
Pricing: Starts at $20/month, free version available
Best for: Advanced web search with traceable sourcing
What is Perplexity AI?
Think of Perplexity AI as an AI-powered search engine. It compiles information from the web and condenses it into handy summaries with citations and links to sources. You can also upload your own files and query the AI model on their contents.
Why it’s great for students:
If you use ChatGPT to ask questions but you’re tired of fact-checking the output for hallucinations, Perplexity AI is an AI chatbot for you. It provides links to all the claims in the AI-generated response. Plus, you can use it to synthesize or analyze your own files.
Key features:
- Real-time AI-powered web search engine
- Deep research with more sources and advanced reasoning
- Different AI models available (Sonar, GPT-4.1, Grok 3, Claude 4.0, etc.)
- File uploading and querying supported
Elicit
Pricing: Starts at $10/month, free version available
Best for: Academic database search and systematic review writing
What is Elicit?
Elicit is an AI research assistant that can summarize academic papers, extract data from them, and answer questions about the contents of the uploaded PDF files. It searches the database of 125+ million academic papers to produce answers. It can also generate whole systematic reviews with citations.
Why it’s great for students:
Elicit is another solid ChatGPT alternative for research in particular. But while Perplexity AI searches the web, Elicit works with academic papers only. It also enables you to ask questions about the papers you upload. So, if you’re working on a research paper, Elicit can save you time synthesizing available studies on the topic.
Key features:
- Search and summarizing across 125+ million academic papers
- Data extraction from academic papers
- Automated systematic review generation with citations
- PDF upload supported
QuillBot
Pricing: Starts at $8.33/month, free version available
Best for: Versatile AI assistance for academic writing needs and beyond
What is QuillBot?
QuillBot is another Swiss Army knife for a variety of writers out there, including but not limited to students struggling with their assignments. Its AI-powered assistance involves paraphrasing, summarizing, outlining, and generating first drafts for different kinds of content creation, from blog posts on how to use AI to write an essay to academic papers.
Why it’s great for students:
Students looking for free alternatives to ChatGPT will appreciate QuillBot’s built-in AI and plagiarism detectors, citation generator, and grammar checker. On top of that, QuillBot is one of the rare tools that offer some AI-powered features across multiple languages (Translator, Paraphraser, Grammar Checker).
Key features:
- AI summarizer, paraphraser, and humanizer tools
- AI writer with outlining and file import features
- Built-in AI detector, plagiarism checker, and grammar checker
- Chrome and Edge extension, Google Docs and Microsoft Word integrations
Grammarly
Pricing: Starts at $12/month, free version available
Best for: Brainstorming, outlining, and refining original content
What is Grammarly?
If you’ve ever needed a hand with proofreading and editing, you’ve probably come across Grammarly’s name. What started as a spelling and grammar checker now includes AI-powered features like adapting the text to a different tone of voice.
Why it’s great for students:
As a ChatGPT alternative for writing, Grammarly is another multipurpose tool meant to support a variety of content types, from blog posts to lab reports. That said, its free version now allows you to generate AI text with 100 prompts a month, which is quite generous. Plus, you might find its citation generator and checker quite handy.
Key features:
- Citation generator and checker (APA, MLA, Chicago)
- Built-in AI and plagiarism detectors
- Clarity, conciseness, and tone suggestions
- AI-powered rewriting and paraphrasing to match the intended tone of voice
Google Gemini
Pricing: Starts at $19.99/month, free version available (Pro plan temporarily free for students)
Best for: AI-powered tutoring and online search
What is Google Gemini?
To put it simply, Gemini is Google’s response to ChatGPT and DALL-E. It’s an AI chatbot with web search capabilities combined with an AI image and video generator, an AI writer and summarizer, an AI-powered learning assistant, and even a coding helper.
Why it’s great for students:
Google Gemini is a solid Chat GPT alternative for students who want to have the same feature range and versatility at their fingertips, from AI image generation to coding help. When it comes to studying, however, you’ll appreciate its Deep Research and learning assistance features.
Key features:
- Deep Research based on online search
- Native Google search engine integration for web search
- Integration with GSuite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, etc.)
- Learning assistance (study plan generation, topic summarizing, quiz generation)
Khanmingo
Pricing: $4/month for learners and families, free tier for teachers
Best for: AI-powered personal tutoring and learning assistance
What is Khanmingo?
Khanmingo is the brainchild of Khan Academy, a U.S. nonprofit that aims to make learning accessible to everyone. Powered by GPT-4, Khanmingo is an AI tutor trained on Khan Academy’s vast library of learning materials. Khanmingo can quiz users, provide writing feedback in real time, and answer learners’ questions.
Why it’s great for students:
Khanmingo is perfect for students who need an AI learning assistant rather than an academic writing tool. Still, if you’re looking for alternatives to ChatGPT for academic writing in particular, Khan Academy Writing Coach can help you refine your writing by providing personalized feedback.
Key features:
- Khan Academy Writing Coach for developing writing skills
- Personalized tutoring based on Khan Academy courses
- Real-time feedback on coding and writing
- Guided prompts for writing and debating practice
NotebookLM
Pricing: Available as part of the Google AI Pro plan ($19.99/month, free for students), free plan available
Best for: Custom source analysis and study guide generation
What is NotebookLM?
NotebookLM is a companion tool for Google Gemini that’s fine-tuned for more in-depth research and analysis. Its multimodal AI model can synthesize uploaded files and answer questions about their contents. Plus, NotebookLM can also generate study guides, FAQs, briefing docs, and timelines based on the uploaded content.
Why it’s great for students:
If you want to speed up your research with concise yet comprehensive summaries, NotebookLM can synthesize insights from multiple sources: files, websites, YouTube videos, Google Docs, audio files, and more. It also includes citations to prevent bogus claims.
Key features:
- Summing up and querying uploaded sources
- Answers with clear citations for every source
- Audio Overview for turning sources into a Deep Dive discussion
- Study guide generation
Claude
Pricing: Starts at $17/month, free plan available
Best for: Ethical AI like ChatGPT for research and writing
What is Claude?
Claude is Anthropic’s answer to ChatGPT, with its ethical approach to AI model development being the key value proposition. Anthropic strives to maintain AI safety and enable responsible scaling for its tool. As for Claude’s capabilities, they span conversational AI, code generation, creative writing suggestions, and report generation based on various sources.
Why it’s great for students:
Besides meeting the rising demand for safe and ethical AI chatbots, Claude also boasts solid multimodal research and synthesis skills. Plus, you can use Claude for data analysis and visualization, document review and synthesis, and brainstorming and outlining.
Key features:
- Document synthesis and summarizing
- Large context window for responding to complex queries
- Code generation and data analysis and visualization
- Multimodal search across the web, integrated tools, and Google Workspace files
What Makes for a Solid ChatGPT Alternative?
There are dozens of AI tools, all competing for your attention. So, how did I choose my top 10 alternatives to ChatGPT?
Well, I focused on:
- Output quality. The AI tool has to generate in-depth, well-organized, concise answers without fluff or incoherence.
- Context matching. When you use an AI assistant for academic writing, it has to produce content that meets applicable academic standards.
- Accuracy. Large language models are prone to hallucination. So, the ideal AI writer uses a properly fine-tuned model to prevent it.
- Transparency. Since academic writing requires verifiable sources, the AI-generated content should be able to provide sources for its main claims.
- Specialized data analysis. Good AI tools for students can produce in-depth content on nuanced, highly specialized topics and handle complex queries and advanced data analysis.
In Closing
Let’s face it: AI isn’t going anywhere, and education is no exception. So, instead of trying to prohibit it, we should ask ourselves, “How can AI be used in education?”
My top 10 ChatGPT alternatives in 2025, for example, can speed up literature review, outlining, drafting, and so much more.
Before you throw your hat in with one of these tools, however, take it for a test drive. All of them either have a free plan or a free version, so you can do it without an upfront investment.
Frequently asked questions
Claude, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are some of the most popular ChatGPT alternatives in 2025. All three are versatile AI chatbots like ChatGPT that can answer questions, write articles, draft other content, enhance original writing, and work with uploaded files. On top of that, they can provide coding help and generate study plans.
Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini have an edge over Claude, however. Both are multimodal AI tools with image generation capabilities.
Yes, there are. I’ve identified the top 10 ChatGPT alternatives for students during my review. Some of them are AI chatbots like ChatGPT, others are AI tools developed specifically for academic tasks like research and literature review. Choose your alternative to ChatGPT wisely based on the tasks you need it for.
Here’s a quick recap of my list of the top 10 ChatGPT alternatives for students:
- StudyPro
- Perplexity AI
- Elicit
- QuillBot
- Grammarly
- Google Gemini
- Microsoft Copilot
- Khanmingo
- NotebookLM
- Claude
Not exactly. ChatGPT comes with multiple caveats when it comes to academic tasks:
- Hallucination risk. It might make up certain facts, so you need to fact-check the output carefully.
- Vast training datasets. ChatGPT was trained on the whole of the internet, so it might spread misinformation
- Lack of traceability. ChatGPT doesn’t clearly state its sources in the responses.
- Mismatch with academic standards. If you ask it to draft a paper, it may not follow the expected structure and writing style.
If you’re looking for Chat GPT alternatives fine-tuned to the academic writing process, StudyPro is times better than ChatGPT. Unlike the AI chatbot, StudyPro was trained exclusively on academic papers and high-quality assignments. Plus, it comes with a full range of tools you might need throughout the process, such as a built-in text editor and AI and plagiarism checkers.
You can use ChatGPT or its alternatives for content generation, brainstorming, paraphrasing your original content, outlining papers, research and synthesis, and more. That said, different tools have unique features that make them more suitable for certain tasks. For example, StudyPro is geared toward end-to-end academic writing assistance, so it has built-in plagiarism and AI checkers and a powerful text editor.
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