In the world of large language models, it's been a realm purely dominated by ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. There's a new player in town from Anthropic though, and it's dubbed "Claude." Claude 3 Opus recently launched, and it's giving a run for its money over competitors in a way that seemingly puts it ahead of even the best of what GPT-4 has to offer.

They both cost the same, but Claude isn't available everywhere

$20 monthly will get you either service

If you want to try out subscription tier of a generative AI service, both Claude 3 Opus and ChatGPT Plus will set you back $20 monthly. The only downside is worldwide availability, as Claude 3 Opus still isn't available in the European Union. You can use a VPN to get around that, though, which is exactly what I did. If you're not sure which to go with, this article will help you decide which to go with dependent on your needs.

What you get

It's an entirely different service

At the moment, Anthropic's Claude 3 Opus is an entirely different service to ChatGPT Plus, and to be honest, has significantly fewer features. it doesn't have a code interpreter, it doesn't have plugins, and it doesn't have a mobile app. ChatGPT Plus, meanwhile, has all of that. You definitely get a more fleshed-out product when it comes to ChatGPT Plus, though Claude 3's entire worth is in its LLM rather than its features.

Moreover, it would seem that Anthropic has plans to bring a code interpreter to Claude 3 in the future, given that it says it doesn't have a code interpreter "yet." That implies it may have one in the future, which we're incredibly hopeful for. It's one of ChatGPT's most powerful features and one that competitors still haven't replicated. ChatGPT Plus is simply better for most people because of all of the features that it has, whereas Claude 3 is for those who want to try out the bleeding edge of LLMs. Claude 3 can't even generate images yet.

Because of all of that, if you're a normal consumer who just wants something that gets the job done with a ton of features on top, then ChatGPT Plus is simply the best option for your money. It costs the same but has a lot more, while also being easily accessible on the go. Claude 3 has a good mobile website, but there's no app, and the lack of additional features is a tough sell for anyone who is weighing it up against alternatives.

Which is the right product for you?

Claude 3 Opus is great for the AI enthusiast, but that's about it

Having played around with both Claude 3 Opus and with GPT-4, Claude 3 Opus as an LLM is one that I'm fairly confident outperforms GPT-4. It's great at reasoning, produces powerful code, and manages to impress consistently. Its responses are generated quickly and it has a nice UI, but the advantages finish there. AI enthusiasts will love it, but people who want to rely on an AI will hate it.

Claude 3 Opus can't generate images, it can't generate code, and it doesn't have a mobile app. As a regular consumer, in its current state, that is far behind what the likes of Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT offer... even in some of their free tiers. That's a tough pill to swallow, and until those improve, consumers won't feel the need to use Claude 3 Opus, no matter how powerful it is. Afterall, OpenAI has a hard time shifting consumers over to ChatGPT Plus because GPT 3.5 is good enough, despite GPT-4 being leaps and bounds ahead of it.

As such, if you're looking to subscribe to an LLM subscription, ChatGPT Plus is simply the best, I love the technology behind Claude 3 Opus and Anthropic has a strong future ahead of it in the LLM space, but it's hard to compete with the goliaths of the industry while not even offering the same set of features. I'm excited to see what comes of future updates, but until those happen, there's simply no contest in my eyes. An LLM is more than just its reasoning abilities, as most of them are good enough at this stage for the average user.