ChatGPT
The most widely used AI chatbot from OpenAI — huge ecosystem, multimodality and GPT Store. Where it excels and where it lags behind Claude?
What I love
- + Largest ecosystem — GPT Store, plugins, integrations
- + Broadest multimodality — text, images, audio, video
- + Strong at creative writing and brainstorming
- + DALL-E and Sora for generating visual content
- + Canvas for iterative work with text and code
What bugs me
- − Higher hallucination rate than Claude
- − Shorter effective context (128k, weaker on long inputs)
- − GPT-4o is sometimes too 'chatty' — hard to get a concise answer
- − Paid version required for the best models
Where ChatGPT is still king
ChatGPT has two huge advantages that Claude hasn't caught up with yet: ecosystem and multimodality.
GPT Store and plugins
Thousands of custom GPTs for specific tasks — from SEO assistants through translators to specialized analyses. If you need AI for a niche use case, it probably already exists in the GPT Store.
Multimodality
ChatGPT handles text, images, audio, and video in a single conversation. You can send it a photo of a whiteboard from a meeting, an audio recording, and a spreadsheet — and it processes all of it in context. Claude currently supports only text and images.
Where ChatGPT falls short
Accuracy
In a direct comparison, ChatGPT is less accurate than Claude — it "hallucinates" more often, i.e. generates plausible-sounding information that isn't true. For factually critical tasks (legal documents, technical documentation, customer support), that's a problem.
Working with long context
Although GPT-4 Turbo supports 128k tokens, answer quality on long inputs drops noticeably. In needle-in-a-haystack tests, it lags behind Claude, which consistently finds information anywhere in a 200k context.
Code
ChatGPT is very good at generating code, but Claude (especially with Claude Code) is a step ahead in this area. ChatGPT has no equivalent of Claude Code — a terminal agent that works directly with your repository.
The o1/o3 model line: reasoning
OpenAI responded to Claude's extended thinking with the o1 and o3 model lines. These models excel at:
- Math and science
- Competitive programming
- Planning and strategy
The main difference: o1/o3 hide the chain-of-thought (you only see the result), Claude shows it. For debugging and understanding how the model thinks, Claude's transparency is more useful.
When to use ChatGPT instead of Claude?
- Creative writing — ChatGPT has better "flow" and is more creative
- Multimodal tasks — video and audio analysis
- Brainstorming — generates more varied ideas
- Visual content — DALL-E and Sora directly in chat
- Niche tasks — GPT Store likely has a specialized version
Verdict
ChatGPT is an excellent all-round AI assistant with the broadest ecosystem on the market. For creative work, multimodal tasks, and regular daily use, it's a great choice. But for professional work with code, data, and documents, I recommend reaching for Claude — it's more accurate and consistently better in those areas.