2026 In-Depth Review of Domestic AI Tools: Doubao, DeepSeek, Tongyi Qianwen, Kimi, ERNIE Bot, and ChatGLM – Which One Is Worth Using?

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Evaluation Methodology
• 3. In-Depth Product Reviews

- 3.1 Doubao (ByteDance) - 3.2 DeepSeek Chat (DeepSeek) - 3.3 Tongyi Qianwen (Alibaba) - 3.4 Kimi (Moonshot AI) - 3.5 ERNIE Bot (Baidu) - 3.6 Zhipu Qingyan / ChatGLM (Zhipu AI)

• 4. Unified Prompt Comparison
• 5. Comprehensive Scoring Table
• 6. Which One to Choose? Recommendations by Use Case
• 7. Tencent Hunyuan and iFlytek Spark
• 8. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
• 9. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Last week, a friend who works in content creation messaged me asking: "There are so many AI tools in China right now—Doubao, DeepSeek, Kimi, Tongyi Qianwen, ERNIE Bot, ChatGLM... which one should I actually use? I’ve installed seven or eight apps, but now I don’t even know which one to open."

I replied to him with this: "Your question itself is an article."

Then I realized that this is indeed the dilemma many everyday users face in 2026. Over the past year and a half, domestic AI tools have gone through a frantic arms race. New versions are released every two or three months, features keep multiplying, and advertising grows more aggressive, yet no one helps you figure out which ones are actually smooth to use and which are just all show.

I’ve been alternating between these tools for nearly a year and a half. To be honest, none of them are perfect. Each has its own personality, its own strengths, and its own moments that make you want to curse. If you’re hoping for an "all-in-one magic tool" that solves every problem with a single click, I advise you to give up that fantasy early.

But if you’re willing to spend some time figuring out what you primarily use AI for, and then pick the one or two that best fit your needs—this article should provide a relatively reliable reference.

I am not an employee of any of these companies, nor have I received any sponsorship. So I will say exactly what I think, including pointing out the flaws in each product as thoroughly as possible.

The evaluation period was May to June 2026, and all products were at their latest versions at that time. The scoring dimensions are consistent, with a maximum score of 10. Without further ado, let’s begin.

2. Evaluation Methodology

Evaluation Method: Uniform prompts and testing environments (primarily web-based, with some app assistance). All tests were conducted independently without cross-referencing. Scores are based on subjective judgment combined with actual output quality.

Testing Period: May 15 – June 20, 2026

Products Evaluated:

Additionally mentioned: Tencent Hunyuan, iFlytek Spark (not included in the main review; discussed separately in Section 7)

3. Deep Product Reviews

3.1 Doubao (ByteDance)

Product Positioning: A national AI assistant focused on daily conversation and content creation.

Doubao is currently the most convenient tool for my daily use. To be honest, what impresses me isn’t any single technical capability, but the overall fluidity of the experience—it’s like chatting with a friend who never tires you out, one who won’t constantly lecture you or resort to the cliché “As an AI, I cannot…”

Response speed is Doubao’s clear advantage over similar products. On the web, responses are nearly instantaneous; the app is also very stable. During peak hours, it may slow down slightly, but it never forces you into a queue that makes you question your life choices, as some competitors do.

The web search integration is quite good, far more naturally integrated than Baidu’s own ERNIE Bot. Doubao digests the search results and incorporates them directly into its answers rather than just dumping a list of links and saying, “Go look for yourself.” This saves a significant amount of time for everyday information queries.

The naturalness of Chinese expression is very high, likely thanks to ByteDance’s accumulation of large amounts of high-quality Chinese content data. When asked to write Xiaohongshu posts, WeChat Moments copy, or jokes, its sense of language feels more grounded than most competitors; it doesn’t have that obvious “machine tone” you often see in AI-generated text.

Of course, there are downsides. Deep reasoning is definitely not its strong suit. If you ask it to perform complex logical analysis or multi-step mathematical derivation, it will often give you an answer that sounds plausible but is actually convoluted and indirect. If you use Doubao for academic analysis or technical research, you will likely be disappointed.

Long-form writing can sometimes “go off track.” If you ask it to write a 5,000-word in-depth article, it may start circling back on itself halfway through, repeating points already made and losing the main thread. Short content is fine, but for pieces over 2,000 words, you need to keep a close eye on it.

Cross-platform consistency is well-executed. The experience across Web, iOS, Android, and browser extensions feels like a single product, unlike some competitors where the app and web versions feel vastly different.

Pricing: The basic version is free. Doubao Pro (which includes the Doubao Large Model Pro+ and web search capabilities) costs approximately 19 RMB per month, making it one of the most cost-effective paid options currently available.

Target Audience: General daily users, content creators, and users who need to look up information online. Not suitable for scenarios requiring deep reasoning or long-document processing.

3.2 DeepSeek Chat (DeepSeek)

Product Positioning: Technical, focusing on reasoning and coding capabilities

DeepSeek is the product that has impressed both domestic and international AI circles over the past year or so. When R1’s “Chain of Thought” mode was released, I remember many people’s first reaction was, “Finally, a domestic AI that can really compete.” This assessment is largely accurate.

Reasoning capability is DeepSeek’s core competitive advantage. After enabling Chain of Thought mode, it will “talk to itself” to sort through the reasoning process before providing an answer. This process itself is highly reference-worthy, and the accuracy of the final answer is indeed much higher than direct output. Complex math problems, multi-variable logical analysis, and long-chain reasoning issues are DeepSeek’s home turf.

Code generation quality ranks first among domestic products; I believe there is little dispute over this. It doesn’t just write code but also explains it and proactively points out potential edge cases, with debugging support that works well. I’ve used it to write several Python data processing scripts for me. Once the requirements are clearly stated, it usually runs correctly on the first try, which isn’t the norm with other products.

API pricing is genuinely low. The R1 series costs about ¥4 per million input tokens, undercutting many competitors’ prices and directly impacting the pricing of the entire domestic AI API market. Many developers and small teams now default to DeepSeek’s API for good reason.

Open-source ecosystem is also a plus. DeepSeek has open-sourced its core models, leading to a surge of derivative projects in the community. If you want to deploy locally or customize, DeepSeek offers the lowest-cost starting point.

But there are drawbacks to mention. The Web product experience is relatively plain; to put it bluntly, it has an “engineer’s aesthetic.” The interface functions are usable but lacks design flair. It doesn’t matter for tech users who don’t care about these things, but if you’re an average user, you might find it unfriendly.

The content moderation threshold is noticeably stricter than other competitors on certain current events topics. Some questions that other platforms answer normally will trigger restrictions on DeepSeek. This isn’t a judgment of right or wrong, but if you need to discuss sensitive topics, you should have psychological preparation.

Slow response during high concurrency is also a real issue, especially when using Chain of Thought mode. Wait times can be long during peak hours, and sometimes connections drop entirely.

Pricing: Basic version is free; API pricing is extremely low (R1 approx. ¥4/million input tokens, V3 approx. ¥2/million input tokens). Enterprises and developers using the API have virtually no competitors that can match it on price.

Target Audience: Developers, researchers, technical analysis scenarios, and professional users requiring high-quality reasoning. Average users who can accept the relatively rudimentary Web experience should also give it a try.

3.3 Tongyi Qianwen (Alibaba)

Product Positioning: All-rounder, long documents + multimodal + open source

Tongyi Qianwen is the most “undervalued” among these products. In many people’s impressions, it’s just “that AI made by Alibaba,” and that’s where it ends. But in reality, if you need to process files, handle multimodal tasks, or run open-source models, Qianwen’s capabilities are not weak; its presence in the consumer market is simply low.

Document processing capability is Qianwen’s true highlight. Uploading PDFs, Word docs, and Excel sheets, Qianwen’s parsing quality is quite good, especially for complex formatted documents (such as reports with tables and charts). It doesn’t parse them chaotically but understands the document structure accurately. This feature is very practical for office workers who need to process large volumes of documents.

Multimodal capability is also quite mature. Image understanding and mixed text-image analysis place Qianwen in the first tier among domestic products. Tasks like uploading a screenshot for data analysis or uploading a product image to write descriptive copy are completed very stably.

Open-source ecosystem is where Alibaba has truly invested effort. The open-source models of the Qwen series are among the most downloaded Chinese models on Hugging Face, with a healthy community ecosystem and rich resources for secondary development, which is crucial for developers.

Integration with Alibaba Cloud and DingTalk is a plus for enterprise users. If your company already uses DingTalk for office work, Qianwen’s embedded experience is much smoother than other products.

Regarding drawbacks, the C-end product experience design indeed lags behind. The interface has many functions but a somewhat cluttered layout; new users may spend considerable time figuring out where to find the features they want.

The conversational tone occasionally leans toward an official style, feeling like chatting with a corporate PR representative who is trying hard to speak humanely but hasn’t fully relaxed. This isn’t a major issue, but it clearly lacks the “natural feel” of Doubao and Kimi.

Pricing: Free version available; Qwen Plus monthly fee is approx. 68 RMB (includes higher call quotas and multimodal features); enterprise version priced on demand. Overall cost-performance ratio is reasonable.

Target Audience: Users needing to process files and documents, users with frequent multimodal needs, heavy DingTalk/Alibaba Cloud users, and developers wanting to run open-source models.

3.4 Kimi (Moonshot AI)

Product Positioning: Long-document specialist, the top choice for knowledge workers

Kimi is the product I switch to most frequently in my work scenarios. The reason is simple: its ability to handle ultra-long documents truly stands out from the crowd, and this capability has direct value for my actual work.

When Moonshot AI launched its 1-million-token context window in 2024, it left many people stunned. While most competitors have since caught up, Kimi still maintains a lead in understanding quality when dealing with long documents in practice. Upload a 50-page industry report and ask it to summarize key data or compare arguments across different chapters, and Kimi rarely suffers from the "forgetting what was said in the first half by the second half" problem; its contextual coherence is quite stable.

This is particularly valuable for legal contract review. Feed it a dozens-of-pages-long contract and ask it to find clauses unfavorable to a specific party or compare differences between two contracts, and Kimi’s performance is more reliable than other competitors, less likely to miss important details.

Stability of answer quality is another plus for Kimi. It rarely "underperforms," seldom giving answers that sound plausible but turn out to be nonsense upon closer inspection. In the scenarios I’ve tested, it belongs to the category of products with a high floor—the peak might not be the highest, but it rarely lets you down.

Web search results are of good quality, with clear source citations showing where the information came from.

Of course, there are downsides. Its mathematical calculation and logical reasoning are noticeably weaker than DeepSeek’s. If you primarily use AI to solve math problems or perform complex logical analysis, Kimi is not the optimal choice.

Its creative writing style is relatively flat. It can complete tasks, but it rarely gives you that "wow, I didn’t think of that angle" sense of surprise; the text quality is average, lacking personality.

Feature expansion speed is relatively slow. While Doubao and Qwen roll out new features every other day, Kimi’s update rhythm is more conservative—going deep rather than wide. This is a strategic choice, but sometimes you do feel that certain basic features are missing.

Pricing: The free version has quota limits (daily usage caps). Kimi Plus costs about 129 RMB/month (200 high-mode requests/day), making it the most expensive paid subscription among these products. If you heavily rely on advanced features, consider this cost. API pricing is pay-as-you-go.

Ideal for: Professionals in law, finance, consulting, and academic research; office workers who need to process large volumes of long documents; users who prioritize answer stability.

3.5 ERNIE Bot / ERNIE Bot 4.5 (Baidu)

Product Positioning: Comprehensive, deeply integrated with the Baidu ecosystem

Writing about ERNIE Bot brings mixed feelings. Baidu has deep accumulation in AI search and knowledge graphs, and ERNIE’s performance in certain specific scenarios is actually not bad. However, the overall experience of its consumer-facing product makes it feel like Baidu hasn’t fully figured out who this product is for.

Web search is ERNIE Bot’s clearest advantage. Integrated with Baidu Search data, its timeliness is excellent. For time-sensitive queries like domestic hot news or real-time data, ERNIE Bot’s information is often more up-to-date because it doesn’t need to wait for crawling; the data is already in its own database. This offers real value to users who need to stay on top of current events.

Baidu ecosystem integration is another plus. The seamless access experience of ERNIE Bot within scenarios like Baidu Wenku’s AI features or Baidu Maps’ smart recommendations is smoother than other products. If your daily work ecosystem is already within the Baidu system, ERNIE Bot’s value is higher than it appears when viewed in isolation.

Its Chinese corpus reserve is indeed substantial. In scenarios requiring citations of Chinese literature, classical poetry, or allusions, ERNIE Bot’s answers will not disappoint you.

But the complaints are real too. Its stability of answer quality lags behind top-tier products. Sometimes its answers make you feel like "all that talk amounted to nothing," with too much fluff and low information density.

The "Baidu flavor" is a common complaint among veteran users—answers sometimes carry the style of Baidu search results: listing points one through four but lacking deep integration, giving the impression that information is pieced together rather than truly understood before output.

Interface features are cluttered, with various function entry points piled together. New users need time to adapt. This aligns with Baidu’s past product development style: wanting to put everything in, but lacking unity and restraint.

Pricing: The basic version is free. ERNIE Bot membership costs about 49 RMB/month. Its pricing is mid-range, but the corresponding capability improvements are not as cost-effective as they appear when directly compared by price.

Ideal for: Heavy users of the Baidu ecosystem; users needing high-timeliness information queries; general users whose daily queries are primary. Not recommended as a main AI tool; better suited as a supplement.

3.6 Zhipu Qingyan / ChatGLM (Zhipu AI)

Product Positioning: Academic focus, strong tool-calling capabilities

Zhipu Qingyan is the product among these that is most easily "overlooked by ordinary users but highly valued by developers and enterprise users." If ranked by C-end user awareness, it likely sits at the bottom. However, if ranked by tool-calling stability, it can place in the top two.

Stability of Function Calling is Zhipu’s true standout capability. Enabling AI to call external tools, APIs, and databases is a high-frequency requirement in real-world business scenarios. Zhipu’s implementation stability ranks among the first tier among domestic products, with a high success rate for calls, well-structured return formats, and a low likelihood of issues like "tool called but returned messy results."

Code capabilities are decent—not as strong as DeepSeek’s, but stable, with a low frequency of obvious basic errors.

API documentation and enterprise support are areas Zhipu has taken seriously. The documentation is clear, examples are plentiful, and technical support response is more diligent than some major tech competitors. For development teams needing to embed AI capabilities into their own products, these details matter.

Private deployment solutions are a plus point during enterprise selection. For financial, healthcare, and government clients with high data security requirements, Zhipu’s compliance solutions are more comprehensive.

On the downside, C-end product experience design is noticeably inferior to Doubao and Kimi; the interface is plain, interaction details lack polish, and while it has enough features, it isn’t particularly smooth to use.

Update frequency is slower than top-tier competitors, and performance in creative tasks (writing, brainstorming) is not outstanding—it’s simply not its primary battlefield.

For ordinary users, Zhipu’s core value isn’t immediately obvious. But for developers and enterprises needing to integrate AI capabilities into their own systems, its stability and completeness are genuine competitive advantages.

Pricing: Free version available; GLM-4 API pricing is approximately ¥100 per million tokens (slightly more expensive than DeepSeek, but with a premium for stability and enterprise service add-ons); enterprise version priced on demand.

Target Audience: Developers needing Tool Use capabilities, enterprise users requiring compliant private deployment, functional integration scenarios, academic research users.

IV. Unified Test Question Comparative Analysis

The following five test questions were independently tested across all products under identical conditions (Web version, no "advanced mode" presets enabled, direct input of the question). Results reflect single outputs without retries.

Test Questions:

1. Chinese Creative Writing: "Write a WeChat Moments post about 'leaving my job to become a freelancer,' 500 words, with a plot twist."
2. Logical Reasoning: "A, B, and C are running a race. A is not first, B is not last, and C is faster than A. What is the ranking?"
3. Code Generation: "Write a Python script to scrape Weibo’s hot search list and output the top 10 items."
4. Document Analysis: "If I upload a 20-page contract, can you help me identify clauses unfavorable to Party A?" (Testing feature support + response quality)
5. Current Events Q&A: "What was the most important AI news in the first half of 2026?" (Testing web search quality)

Summary: No single product leads in all test items. DeepSeek is strongest in technical categories (reasoning + code), Doubao and ERNIE Bot excel in current events, Tongyi Qianwen and Kimi are most stable in document analysis, and Doubao has the most natural language sense in creative writing.

Five. Comprehensive Scoring Table

Scores are based on the overall experience during the full testing period (May–June 2026), on a scale of 10, and include subjective judgment.

Note: The total score is the sum of the five dimensions, with a maximum of 50 points. The scores reflect comprehensive consumer-side value; in developer scenarios, the actual value of DeepSeek and Zhipu is higher than what the table indicates.

Six. Which One to Choose? Recommendations by Use Case

If you are a casual user who chats with AI, looks up information, and occasionally writes content—choose Doubao. The reason is simple: fast response times, natural Chinese expression, a sufficient free tier, and an affordable paid plan at just 19 RMB per month. You don’t need to worry about reasoning chains; Doubao has done the best job domestically at making the experience seamless.

If you are a student or engaged in academic research—choose the Kimi + DeepSeek combination. For reading literature, processing PDFs, and organizing materials, Kimi’s long-document capabilities save significant time; for mathematical derivations and logical arguments, switching to DeepSeek’s Chain of Thought mode yields noticeably higher accuracy. Both offer free quotas, so there’s no cost involved.

If you are a developer or programmer—DeepSeek is the clear first choice. Code generation quality, reasoning accuracy, and API pricing combined leave no competitor in contention. If you need stable tool-calling capabilities, pairing it with Zhipu’s API is a solid alternative.

If you are a content creator—use Doubao as your primary tool and Tongyi Qianwen as a backup. Doubao excels in Chinese linguistic nuance and creative writing, making it the priority for daily copywriting and social media content. When tasks require image analysis or handling multimedia assets, Tongyi Qianwen’s multimodal capabilities serve as a valuable supplement.

If you work in law, finance, or consulting—choose Kimi. For processing contracts, analyzing reports, and comparing documents, Kimi’s ultra-long context window and stable document analysis capabilities directly address the core needs of these scenarios. At 129 RMB per month, it is not expensive for professional use; compressing files that previously took two hours to read down to 20 minutes delivers time value far exceeding the subscription cost.

If you need API integration to build products—choose DeepSeek API with Zhipu as a backup. DeepSeek’s API pricing has lowered the market ceiling, making it the default choice for most developers. If your scenario requires high stability in tool calling or if enterprise clients have compliance requirements, Zhipu’s API is worth serious evaluation.

Seven, A Word on Tencent Hunyuan and iFlytek Spark

These two products were not included in the main review, but since they come up often, here are my brief thoughts.

Tencent Hunyuan: Its capabilities have improved noticeably. Its integration with the WeChat ecosystem is a unique advantage—when applied to scenarios like WeChat Customer Service and WeCom, its value far exceeds that of looking at it as a standalone consumer product. However, as an independent AI chat tool, it still lags behind the first tier across several key dimensions; it is slightly weaker in creative tasks and deep reasoning is not its strong suit. If you are a heavy user of Tencent Cloud or need to integrate with WeCom, Hunyuan is worth serious consideration.

iFlytek Spark: Its voice capabilities and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) are genuine strengths. It offers high levels of customization for educational scenarios and has built a loyal user base in K-12 education and language learning. However, in terms of general conversation and reasoning abilities, Spark currently sits in the second tier. If your needs involve voice interaction or educational contexts, Spark is worth trying.

Eight, Conclusion

After reviewing these six products, my conclusion is: The overall level of domestic AI tools has made significant strides between 2025 and 2026, but the market has not yet converged into a "single dominant player" landscape, nor will it in the short term.

Each product has found its own niche. Asking which one is "the best" is itself an imprecise question—the best tool is always the one that best fits your current scenario.

But if you force me to give a recommendation, here is my personal answer:

Use Doubao as your daily primary tool. It is currently the one I open most frequently. For searching information online, writing copy, and daily conversation, its experience is the smoothest, and its paid costs are the lowest.

Switch to DeepSeek for technical scenarios. When facing tasks that require coding or reasoning analysis, I actively switch to DeepSeek’s Chain of Thought mode. The gap in performance here is visible to the naked eye.

Use Kimi for document processing. When uploading contracts, reports, or papers, Kimi is my first choice. Its reliability in handling long documents makes me willing to pay for this specialized capability.

If you are only going to use one right now, I would say: Install Doubao first. If you feel it lacks depth, add DeepSeek; if you start processing professional documents, add Kimi. These three basically cover 90% of AI usage scenarios.

Qwen, ERNIE Bot, and Zhipu each have their specific value and will outperform the above three in appropriate scenarios, but as default options for ordinary users, they are not yet the top recommendation at this stage.

The domestic AI tool market updates at an extremely fast pace; today’s review may be obsolete tomorrow. I suggest focusing less on specific scores and more on "which product has genuine advantages in which dimensions"—this landscape is unlikely to change drastically in the short term.

To understand the strategic layout and competitive dynamics of the companies behind domestic AI tools, refer to 2026 Overview of AI Company Ecosystems; if you are also using international AI tools and want a horizontal comparison, refer to Top LLM Models Review; for developers considering calling domestic AI API interfaces, refer to In-depth Comparison of AI API Platforms.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Which is better, Doubao or Kimi?

They serve different purposes, so it’s not a simple matter of one being better than the other. Doubao excels in everyday usability: it responds quickly, offers the most natural and colloquial Chinese expression, integrates web search smoothly, and provides an extremely cost-effective paid plan at just 19 RMB per month. It is ideal for daily conversations, copywriting, and information lookup. Kimi, on the other hand, excels in long-document processing: with a 1-million-token context window, it accurately understands uploaded documents like 50-page contracts or reports, maintains strong contextual coherence, and delivers highly stable responses (with a high baseline). Its paid plan is priced at 129 RMB per month, which is relatively expensive. If you primarily use AI for chatting and writing, choose Doubao; if you need to process large volumes of PDFs, contracts, academic papers, or other professional documents, choose Kimi. The ideal solution is to install both—use Doubao as your daily main tool, and switch to Kimi when file analysis is required.

Q: Is DeepSeek free, and how do I use it?

The basic version of DeepSeek is completely free. You can access it via the web at deepseek.com (directly accessible within China). After registering an account, you can start using it without any payment. The free tier supports two modes: standard conversation mode and "Deep Thinking" (R1 reasoning chain) mode. The latter displays the complete reasoning process before providing an answer, making it suitable for complex tasks such as mathematics, logic, and coding. Limitations of the free version include slower response times during peak hours (sometimes requiring a wait) and a daily usage quota cap. API calls are billed separately (approximately ¥4 per million input tokens) and are intended for developers. Mobile apps are available for both iOS and Android. If you experience slow access speeds, you can try DeepSeek mirror services provided by various domestic platforms (such as SiliconFlow or Moonshot AI).

Q: Do domestic AI tools have web search capabilities?

Yes, though performance varies significantly across providers. Doubao offers the best web search experience—its search results are genuinely "digested" into the response rather than simply listing links, providing strong timeliness and natural information integration. ERNIE Bot (Wenxin Yiyan) has the fastest web search because it directly connects to Baidu’s search database, offering the most timely updates for domestic hot news and real-time information. Kimi’s web search provides clear source citations, allowing you to see where the information comes from, which is ideal for scenarios requiring traceability. Tongyi Qianwen’s web search function is stable but has mediocre source labeling. DeepSeek may trigger content restrictions on certain current events topics, resulting in sometimes incomplete web search results. Zhipu Qingyan’s web search capability is relatively weak, with information that is sometimes outdated. Overall, for daily web queries, Doubao is the top choice; for tracking real-time news, choose ERNIE Bot; and for verifying sources, choose Kimi.

Q: Which is better for Chinese writing, Tongyi Qianwen or ERNIE Bot?

Based on comprehensive testing, Tongyi Qianwen excels in structured writing (clear logic and well-defined hierarchy), while ERNIE Bot has an advantage in writing that integrates search information (accurate timely data). However, Doubao is the actual leader in Chinese creative writing—it offers the most natural and fluent Chinese expression, with a grounded sense of language. It performs highly on content creation tasks such as Xiaohongshu copywriting, WeChat Moments posts, and jokes, avoiding the obvious "robotic tone" seen in outputs from some other AIs. Qianwen tends toward an official, formal tone, while ERNIE Bot sometimes suffers from information stacking without sufficient depth; both fall slightly short of Doubao in pure creative writing. If your writing needs involve formal reports or structured documents, Qianwen is more suitable; if you are creating short content for social media, Doubao is more convenient.

Q: Which domestic AI tool is most student-friendly?

The combination of Kimi and DeepSeek is the optimal solution for student scenarios, and both offer generous free tiers. Kimi specializes in handling academic papers, textbook PDFs, and research reports—you can upload documents and request summaries, compare viewpoints across different sources, or extract key arguments, significantly improving literature review efficiency; the free version allows a certain number of uses per day. DeepSeek’s chain-of-thought mode is highly valuable for logic-driven subjects like mathematics and physics—it doesn’t just provide answers but displays complete problem-solving reasoning, serving as a useful study reference (note: verify answers, as AI can make mistakes). Doubao is suitable for daily writing assistance and quick information queries. ERNIE Bot’s integration with Baidu data gives it an edge in finding domestic resources. Overall recommendation: use Kimi for literature/long documents, DeepSeek for mathematical and logical reasoning, and Doubao for daily assistance; this combination essentially covers the main AI usage scenarios for students.

All tests were completed between May and June 2026. Pricing information is based on official website disclosures at that time; please refer to the latest official pricing.

Official Entry Points and Verification Checklist

AI products, model capabilities, free tiers, and pricing change rapidly. After reading this article, we recommend verifying the latest versions, pricing, service terms, and regional availability at the official entry points below before making actual purchases, deploying to production, or citing in teaching:

• Doubao
• DeepSeek
• Tongyi Qianwen
• Kimi
• ERNIE Bot
• Zhipu Qingyan