Free AI Tools in 2026: Chat, Writing, Images, Translation, Voice, and Video
AI tools you can use free or within a free allowance, sorted by chat, writing, images, translation, voice, video, and office work—DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, Doubao, Nano Banana, Stable Diffusion, DeepL, TTSMAKER, CapCut, and more—with each tool's limits.
"Free" means three different things for AI tools: completely free (DeepSeek's web app, TTSMAKER), a free allowance with paid usage beyond it (Kimi, DeepL, most of CapCut's AI features), and open-source free where you supply the compute (Stable Diffusion). This roundup picks tools you can start using for free in each category and puts each tool's limits up front, so you don't find out halfway through that you need to pay.
Who is this for?
Recommended tools (15)
DeepSeek
Chinese Q&A, writing, and code; V4 series supports a 1M-token context
Kimi
Native 1M-token context; file analysis within a free allowance
Tongyi Qianwen
Text, code, and multimodal, with a free allowance
DoubaoNew
Chat, voice, image generation, and "Help me write"; works directly in China
Nano Banana
Generate and edit images within the free allowance
Stable Diffusion
Unlimited local generation; needs a GPU and some setup
Flux.1
Run locally; licenses differ by version, so check before commercial use
Duiyou AI
Chinese prompts, with a community for sharing work and prompts
Bing Image Creator
A daily allowance of fast generations, then slower generation continues
Metaso Writing Cat
Basic error checks and rewrites within a free allowance
DeepL
Free plan covers 50,000 characters a month, plus DeepL Write
TTSMAKER
100+ languages, no sign-up, MP3 downloads
CapCut Pro
Basic editing is free; some AI features and assets need a membership
Jimeng AINew
Text-to-image and image-to-video with a daily free allowance
ChatExcel
Analyzes Excel, PDF, Word, and text within a free allowance
Free AI tools by scenario
| Scenario | Tools | How it's free | Main limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI chat and writing | DeepSeek / Doubao / Kimi | Free web and app, or free tier | May queue at peak times |
| AI images | Nano Banana / Stable Diffusion | Free tier / open-source self-hosting | Online caps; local needs a GPU |
| AI translation | DeepL | Free plan, 50,000 characters a month | Pay beyond the limit |
| Text-to-speech | TTSMAKER | Free | Check voices and commercial terms on the site |
| AI video | CapCut / Jimeng | Basic features free / free tier | Some features and assets need a membership |
Free allowances can change at any time; check each tool's website. Checked October 1, 2026.
FAQ
- Q: How good are free AI tools?
- A: Good enough for everyday tasks. DeepSeek's web and mobile apps are free and its V4 series is open-weight under the MIT license; Kimi, Qwen, and Doubao all offer free allowances. The gaps are mainly peak-time speed, daily caps, and advanced features, not basic Q&A and writing ability.
- Q: What are the limits of free AI?
- A: Common limits: daily or monthly caps, queues at peak times, public work on free plans (as with Leonardo), watermarks or capped resolution on exports, and no API access. Open-source models have no usage caps, but you need your own GPU and deployment setup.
- Q: Will these tools stay free?
- A: Not necessarily. Released open-source weights stay free to use, but commercial free allowances can change at any time—Volcano Writing, for example, shut down and moved into Doubao, and Tencent Zhiying suspended service. Don't rest an important workflow on a single free tool, and export your data regularly.