AI Tool Tier List · Updated Daily
AI tools, ranked S to F.
Every tool tested, scored, and placed in its tier. We report the bugs, show the pricing traps, and tell you what actually works. No sponsored placements.
01 The Tier List
Top picks across 5 categories.
Last updated: Nov 5, 2026
02 Browse by Category
Find tools for exactly what you need.
03 Latest Reviews
Recently reviewed and updated.
DALL-E (Shut Down)
**Nov 2026: the migration targets moved again -- gpt-image-1 was shut down on 2026-10-23, and gpt-image-1.5 and gpt-image-1-mini (which this page used to recommend) are deprecated with removal on 2026-12-01; since 2026-11-05 OpenAI's deprecations table names the new gpt-image-2.6-sunburst / gpt-image-2.6-flare (released 2026-11-04) as the replacement, where it previously named the 2.5 pair.** OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and DALL-E 3 -- SHUT DOWN. Both APIs were retired on 2026-05-12. Existing integrations now fail; the GPT Image request shape differs (not a drop-in swap). Tier-list alternatives: Nano Banana 2, Midjourney, FLUX.2 [klein], Ideogram
Ideogram
**Nov 2026: Ideogram 4.5 is the new headline model and the plans were rebuilt around credits.** AI image platform known for text rendering -- Ideogram 4.5 (precise multi-turn editing, native 2K, API from $0.03/image), Ideogram 4.0 open weights (9.3B DiT, 0.97 X-Omni OCR; the free download is non-commercial, commercial self-hosting from $300/mo), Ideogram Vector SVG output, and other labs' image and video models on one credit balance. Plus $20/mo ($15 billed yearly), Pro $60/mo, Team $30/user
Claude (Anthropic)
**Plans changed around Oct 30: Max 20x is now called Ultra ($200, 10x Pro usage a week with no five-hour limit for verified accounts, $200 of monthly API credits), and the $100 Max plan now includes Fable up to half its weekly limit plus $100 of API credits. Nov 5: Personal Finance entered beta in the US on Pro, Max and Ultra -- read-only bank and card connections through Plaid.** **Nov 2: message threads entered public beta on the Claude Platform, Claude Platform on AWS, Microsoft Foundry and Google Cloud, so agents send only the new turn and the previous response ID instead of the whole history, cutting median time to first token by about 35% on 500K-1M-token requests at standard token rates. Nov 4: Claude Marketplace passed 25 partner agents and products that eligible enterprises can buy against committed Anthropic spend.** **Claude Duet opened as a research preview on 2026-10-21: a proactive agent app on iOS, Android and claude.ai, built around Claude Opus 5.5, that sends a morning brief from your connected apps, keeps working on a cloud computer while you are away and asks before it sends, pays or deletes anything. It is included in Pro and Max in the US with a waitlist, on the same usage limits as the rest of Claude.** **Oct 23: chat and Cowork became one Claude for Enterprise (GA). Oct 22: the full Claude Platform went GA on Google Cloud as an Anthropic-managed offering billed through Google Cloud. Oct 26: Anthropic filed an S-1 for an IPO on Nasdaq under ANT.** **Claude Haiku 5.5 shipped on 2026-10-07 at $0.10 / $0.50 per 1M tokens for prompts up to 100K ($0.50 / $2.50 above) -- 90% below Haiku 4.5 on most requests -- with adjustable effort for the first time on a Haiku, and the same day Anthropic halved Sonnet 5.5 cache reads to $0.10 and added monthly API credits for Max ($100 or $200) and Team (up to $500 pooled).** **Anthropic expanded the Cyber Verification Program on 2026-10-06 into three access tiers (Defense, Red Team, Specialized) that unlock reduced cyber safeguards on Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Mythos 5.1 and future models for verified security teams -- closing the 'coming weeks' note Opus 5.5 shipped with; generally available Claude keeps its conservative cyber blocks.** **Two Claude 5.5 models in six days: Claude Opus 5.5 (2026-09-22) and Claude Sonnet 5.5 (2026-09-28).** Opus 5.5 performs at Fable 5.1 level on most work and costs 40% less than Opus 5 to run -- $4/$20 per 1M (down from $5/$25) with cache reads cut to $0.20 (from $0.50), fast mode at $8/$40 up to 2.5x speed, output 30%+ faster, and five-hour usage limits raised on Pro, Max, Team and seat-based Enterprise with a saveable rate-limit reset. Sonnet 5.5 keeps Sonnet 5's $2/$10 but needs far fewer tokens (up to 30% cheaper per task), runs 30%+ faster and jumps Terminal-Bench 4.0 from 10.3% to 70.6%. Both are 1M context, Jun 2026 cutoff, on the Claude Platform, Bedrock, Vertex and Foundry; Haiku 5.5 followed on 2026-10-07. Opus 5.5 launches with Fable-class cyber and bio safeguards (most cyber tasks fall back to Opus 4.8) and cannot run with thinking off.
Gemini (Google)
**Nov 5: Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash went GA in the Gemini API with 15-second video at about $0.07 per second for 720p, and 15-second clips are rolling out in the Gemini app for Google AI Ultra. Nov 2: gemini-2.5-pro and gemini-2.5-flash left the AI Studio model picker, and from Dec 1 their API calls route to Gemini 3.8 Flash and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite at those models' rates.** **Oct 29: the Gemini app can now generate, preview and edit documents, PDFs, slide decks, spreadsheets, Markdown and code right inside the chat for all users (PDF on web and mobile, the other formats on web only). Oct 30: the Computer Use tool went generally available in the Gemini API across the Interactions and GenerateContent APIs.** **Gemini 4 Carbon was announced on 2026-10-28 as Google's strongest model, but it is not generally available yet: access starts this week for a subset of cyber defenders through the Fairwind Program, and Google says developers, businesses and consumers get it later. When it opens it carries Argon's intro price of $2 / $10 per 1M tokens, rising to $4 / $20 after the intro period. Google reports it #1 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v5.0 at 59.** **Gemini 4 Argon went generally available on 2026-10-13: in the Gemini API (paid tier only), AI Studio, Gemini for business and GitHub Copilot, in the Gemini app and AI Mode in Search for Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers, and in Google Antigravity for Ultra. The API rate card prices it at $2 input / $10 output per 1M tokens with $0.10 implicit-cache reads through November 30, 2026, doubling to $4 / $20 / $0.20 on December 1; there is no free tier and no explicit caching.** Google calls it its flagship reasoning model, with a 1M-token unified input-output limit, #1 on the Vals Index, 87% on the ERQA embodied-reasoning benchmark and 0.7% attack success on Gray Swan prompt injection, alongside the 9/30 numbers (77.9% DeepSWE v1.1, 51.3% AutomationBench, 91.7% LVBench, 68% CWE-bench v1) -- all vendor-reported. Earlier in October: Gemini 3.7 Flash and 3.5 Flash were retired from AI Studio (10/08) with API calls auto-routed to 3.8 Flash and 3.6 Flash, Nano Banana 2.1 went GA (10/06) and SynthID Detector opened to everyone in English (10/07). Late September in the Gemini app: **skills replace Gems** (9/30; slash-command instructions with reference files, Gems removed from November 2026 for personal accounts), **Guided Vision in Gemini Live** for blind and low-vision users on Android (10/01), and the 9/23-9/24 wave still stands: Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS and Flash-Lite TTS with voice design at $0.50/$9.00 and $0.50/$6.00 per 1M (doubling 2027-01-01), Gemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar in Gemini Enterprise, free 1080p Omni 1.1 video in Google Vids. Googlebook was scheduled to reach shelves 10/04 (shipment not yet vendor-confirmed).
Muse Spark + Muse Wonder (Meta)
**Nov 5: the Muse app gained real-time voice conversations and expressive avatars (US first, on mobile, web and Mac, with hundreds of voices); voice is coming to Meta's AI Glasses and Muse Charm.** Meta Superintelligence Labs' model family, now four lines deep: **Muse Wonder** (2026-10-12, frontier, $4/$20 per 1M on the Meta Model API; Wonder Full only in Muse Code subscriptions), **Muse Spark 1.3** (2026-09-02, $1.25/$4.25, or $0.10/$0.20 in Contributor mode if Meta may train on your content), **Muse Spark Open** (2026-10-15, 816B/42B-active open weights, 1M context, runs on two Mac Studios with M5 Ultra) and **Muse Glimmer** (2026-08-10, 30B, Apache 2.0, built for local agents). Consumers get it through **Muse**, Meta's personal-agent app (2026-09-08): free with limits, Power $20/mo, Maximum $100/mo
GPT-6 Cyber / GPT-5.6 Cyber (OpenAI)
**Nov 5: OpenAI launched GPT-6 Cyber -- the 'upcoming cyber model' behind the 948 Linux exploits -- and classifies it Critical for cybersecurity (GPT-5.6 Cyber was High). It scores 48.5% on ExploitGym versus 32.1% for GPT-5.6 Cyber, costs $20/$100 per 1M tokens with a 1.05M-token context, and is available through the API and Codex to a select group of approved Daybreak Red customers first; GPT-5.6 Cyber opens to every Daybreak Red customer.** **Nov 4: GPT-5.6 Cyber reached AWS GovCloud (US-East) through Daybreak Red on Amazon Bedrock for approved government customers, and OpenAI reported that an upcoming cyber model found and exploited 948 Linux local privilege escalation bugs in one mid-October run for $1,213,430 in API credits.** **GPT-5.4-Cyber reached its API removal date on 2026-10-01: the gpt-5.4-cyber model page now returns Not found while gpt-5.6-cyber stays live (checked 2026-10-02; OpenAI's deprecations doc had not yet moved the row to Past Deprecations). Its replacement is `gpt-5.6-cyber`**, an alias for OpenAI's most advanced purpose-trained cyber models, gated behind the Daybreak program and priced at $12.50/$75 per 1M (first published price for any OpenAI cyber model). Original page: OpenAI's defensive-cybersecurity variant of GPT-5.4, launched 2026-04-16. Lowered refusal boundary for security-research tasks and native binary reverse-engineering. Access gated via Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program -- thousands of verified defenders, hundreds of teams, no public pricing. On **2026-08-17 OpenAI published its first dedicated post on the Hugging Face incident**, conceding it 'underestimated the real-world cyber capabilities of our AI models' and confirming it now releases cyber capabilities only to trusted defenders. **On 2026-09-01 OpenAI confirmed GPT-6 Astra meets the Critical cyber threshold -- the first model it has ever designated at that level -- and on 2026-09-03 committed $1B to Daybreak for Frontline Defenders**
04 Reviews you can actually trust
Every review is based on hands-on testing, cross-referenced user sentiment from G2, Reddit, and Capterra, and real pricing data. We report known bugs. We don't do paid placements.