Claude
Anthropic's AI assistant, built for careful writing, reasoning, and coding rather than flashy extras.
What is Claude?
Claude is the AI assistant built by Anthropic, a company founded in 2021 by former OpenAI researchers with a specific focus on AI safety. Where some competitors chase flashy features, Claude has stayed narrower and more deliberate: a chat assistant that reads documents, writes and edits text, works through code, and reasons carefully about whatever you put in front of it. That restraint shows up in daily use as a model that tends to do what you actually asked, rather than what it assumes you meant.
The product has grown well beyond a single chat window. Alongside the web and mobile apps, Claude now includes Projects for organizing ongoing work, Artifacts for generating and editing documents, code and mini-apps inside the conversation, and Claude Code, a dedicated coding agent that can work across an entire codebase from the terminal or an IDE. Anthropic ships new model versions on a fairly regular cadence, and the underlying models have moved from a 200,000-token context window to a 1-million-token window on the top-tier models, which matters if you regularly paste in long documents, contracts, or large codebases.
Country availability and context-window figures reflect Anthropic's published information and are approximate; check Anthropic's site for the current status in your region.
Key features
Code assistant
Writes, debugs and explains code across dozens of programming languages, from a quick script to a full feature.
Long document analysis
Upload contracts, reports or entire books and ask questions across the full text, not just a short excerpt.
Artifacts
Generates documents, slides, diagrams and small interactive apps in a separate panel you can keep editing.
Projects
Groups related chats, files and instructions together so ongoing work doesn't get lost in a single thread.
Web search
Pulls in current information from the web when a question needs more than the model's training data.
Claude Code
A terminal- and IDE-based coding agent that can plan, edit and test changes across a whole codebase.
Pricing
Free
- Claude Sonnet 5 with daily limits
- Web, iOS & Android access
- Basic file uploads
Pro
- 5x higher usage limits than Free
- Access to Claude Opus 4.8
- Projects, Artifacts & Claude Code
Team
- Central billing & admin controls
- Higher usage pool shared by the team
- Everything in Pro
Enterprise plans with custom pricing are also available, billed annually. Prices shown reflect Anthropic's published pricing and may change — cards link directly to Anthropic's official pricing page.
Available models
Integrations & platforms
Pros, cons & best for
Pros
- Reliably follows precise formatting and tone instructions
- Handles very long documents and codebases well
- Careful, well-reasoned writing on nuanced topics
Cons
- No native image generation, unlike some competitors
- Smaller third-party plugin ecosystem than ChatGPT
- Free tier limits can feel restrictive for daily heavy use
Best for
- Writers, editors and researchers
- Developers using Claude Code
- Teams reviewing long documents or contracts
Take a look inside
Chat interface
Model selection
Incognito mode
Claude Code
Chat interface
Model selection
Incognito mode
Claude Code
Alternatives
If Claude isn't quite the right fit, these are the two most commonly compared alternatives:
Our verdict
Claude's strength is consistency: it follows instructions closely, handles long or technical material without losing track, and rarely needs to be re-prompted to get a usable answer. That focus comes at a cost — no built-in image generation, and a smaller add-on ecosystem than ChatGPT's. For writing, research, and coding work where precision matters more than extra features, it's one of the strongest options available; for users who want one app to also generate images or plug into a huge marketplace of third-party tools, it may need to sit alongside another assistant rather than replace it entirely.
FAQ
Is Claude free to use?
Yes. The Free plan gives access to Claude Sonnet 5 with daily usage limits. Paid plans raise those limits and unlock more capable models.
Can Claude generate images?
No, Claude does not generate images natively. It focuses on text, documents, code, and data analysis instead.
What's the difference between Claude Pro and Claude Max?
Pro is Anthropic's standard paid plan at $20/month. Max is a higher tier for heavy users who need substantially more usage, particularly for Claude Code.
Does Claude have a mobile app?
Yes, Claude has official apps for iOS and Android, alongside the web app and desktop apps for macOS and Windows.
What is Claude Code?
Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent, used from the terminal, desktop app, or an IDE, that can plan and carry out multi-step coding tasks across a codebase.
How large a document can Claude handle?
Claude's top-tier models support context windows up to 1 million tokens, roughly several hundred pages of text in a single conversation.