ChatGPT suffers from listomania.
When comparing ChatGPT 5.1 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5, the former’s tendency to list-making was almost annoying. Like, you could be having an existential crisis, and it’d still try to reassure you in bullet points.
That’s a stark contrast to Claude Opus 4.5. Anthropic’s model is an essayist, loading responses in full sentences and paragraphs. It’s also far more concise, saying what needs to be said in a few paragraphs, whereas ChatGPT’s responses can fill up an entire page.
I can only assume that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, conducted market research and found that users prefer lists over full-blown paragraphs. While they’re handy, I’m less of a fan.
Between the two, I tend to lean more toward Claude. I find its responses sound more human and less robotic. At the same time, however, ChatGPT has some quality-of-life features and is a more feature-complete model, making it better suited for most people. I do appreciate how ChatGPT probes further, suggesting other things it can do to continue diving deeper.
I’ve also found Claude to be more performant in shopping, an outcome I didn’t expect considering how aggressively OpenAI has been touting ChatGPT’s e-commerce prowess. I do like how ChatGPT integrates pictures and links in its shopping responses, something that’s severely lacking with Claude. Lastly, while I’m not much of a coder, I did ask both to build me a simple web app, with Claude accomplishing the feat faster and running it in the same chat window.
Either way, if you have $20 a month ($17/month for Claude if billed annually) to spend on an AI model and are caught between ChatGPT and Claude, I’d lean slightly more toward Claude. That’s despite Claude’s servers sometimes getting overloaded and failing to respond. The choice is rather preferential, however, and dependent on what you like your AI chatbot to do. Below, I’ll break down the pros and cons of each. Even then, I think choosing one comes down to individual preference, showing the general convergence of today’s AI models.
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What is ChatGPT 5.1?
ChatGPT 5.1 is OpenAI’s latest AI model. OpenAI says it’s its most conversational model to date, thanks to its ability to switch between two modes. It defaults to an «auto» mode, which looks at the types of questions you’re asking and figures out if it should give you an «instant» answer or use its «thinking» mode to output something more in-depth. You can also manually select either. For the purposes of this article, I kept it on auto.
ChatGPT 5.1 follows instructions better than 5.0 and has an overall warmer tone.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
What is Claude Opus 4.5?
Claude Opus 4.5 is Anthropic’s most powerful model, and the company says it’s optimized for work and coding. Opus 4.5 is an advanced reasoning model and runs in a way designed to give a more complete answer. It also means it takes longer to execute over the mid-level Sonnet 4.5 and smaller Haiku 4.5 models.
Do you prefer to type or talk?
When chatting with either ChatGPT or Claude in my web browser, I’ve always found Claude’s responses to be tighter and more natural sounding. ChatGPT often defaults to generating lists, which can be visually handy, but they don’t convey thoughts as clearly.
Voice mode is where the models differ the most. Claude seems like it’s a generation behind, sounding robotic and lacking some visual AI finesse. For example, when trying to figure out what to wear to a friend’s party, Claude wasn’t as good at picking up the color of my sweater, and as a result, didn’t give the best advice on which pants to pair it with.
On the other hand, ChatGPT’s voice mode sounds closer to natural. You can converse and interrupt it as you would a person in a normal conversation. The voice also sounds more human, and its visual AI works without issue, allowing me to turn on my camera and continue conversing. It was much better at distinguishing colors when asking for fashion advice.
Which AI chatbot should you confide in?
An increasing number of people are turning to AI as always-on therapists. While it’s helpful to gain some insights from AI, be aware that AI chatbots aren’t mental health providers. They can’t see your expressions in real time and, since they’re trained on vast amounts of data, outputs can be unpredictable. AIs can also be sycophantic, leaning toward a user’s biases to try and please. This isn’t necessarily a good thing when you need objective insight.
Regardless, when asking both chatbots some testy personal questions, I was surprised at how ChatGPT still defaulted to creating lists. I found it odd considering the subject matter. The details of the advice or insight didn’t differ too greatly from Claude, however.
Claude stuck to writing things out in full sentences and being more exacting. In this instance, I preferred Claude’s style over ChatGPT’s. Sure, creating action plans for issues you’re facing is handy, but sometimes it’s also good to process insights fully. While Claude sounded more like a helping hand that was willing to chime in whenever needed, ChatGPT came off as a nosy robot that was always looking to find new ways to please.
It’s hard to pull out a clear winner in this comparison. It depends on how you use AI. If you prefer to type away on a keyboard, stick with Claude. If you like to converse via voice, ChatGPT might be the way to go.
Claude is the better shopping assistant, but ChatGPT presents more cleanly
OpenAI continues to laud ChatGPT as the go-to AI shopping assistant. The company has issued a few updates to integrate more storefronts, images and shopping links within ChatGPT. Heck, it’s even possible to check out with certain retailers completely within ChatGPT, with mixed results.
I think one of the more important purchasing decisions a person will make is buying a car. Vehicles are expensive to own and maintain. Plus, cars transport families, which only adds to the pressure.
With all the trims, recalls, and other externalities, AI is a great tool for synthesizing all the conversations happening online, from reviews to Reddit posts, about a particular car and distilling it for a potential buyer.
Both Claude and ChatGPT did a great job of gathering information about the Porsche 987 Cayman, a sports car manufactured from 2006 to 2012. Both broke down the various trims, pain points and other things to consider when shopping around.
ChatGPT integrated more imagery of the cars, which I appreciated. And in typical ChatGPT fashion, bullet points were all over the page. Beyond listing and comparing factoids between various trims, it didn’t give an opinion until I asked about the newer 981 Cayman.
Claude took a different approach. It skimped on the details but was more willing to add its own commentary. Where ChatGPT filled the page with facts, less than half the page on Claude was spent on comparing the 987 Cayman trims.
I also asked both chatbots what I should expect to pay for a used 987 Cayman S with 90,000 miles. Both landed in the same ballpark and suggested splurging a little for a later model that fixed some issues. I appreciated how matter-of-fact Claude was compared to ChatGPT, using roughly half the page to break down the importance of finding a car with a documented service history and conducting a full inspection, checking for wear on brakes, clutch, and suspension. ChatGPT did this as well, but it was after a lot more delineation.
Generally, I feel ChatGPT is better for research, whereas Claude is better for thoughts and commentary. ChatGPT was also able to pull up listings of used Caymans, which was a nice touch.
Ideally, I’d prefer a mix of both Claude and ChatGPT. I like how concise Claude is, and I like how ChatGPT is willing to go out onto the net and pull in live information. Still, on paper, I believe ChatGPT to be the winner.
Coding and imagery
For this comparison, we won’t delve too deeply into how both ChatGPT 5.1 and Claude Opus 4.5 differ in generating code. I did some surface-level vibe coding tests. I asked both chatbots to create a simple web-based program that generates a to-do list, one that can easily be checked off as you accomplish tasks.
Claude was much faster in putting the code together, and it was able to launch the program within the chat window. ChatGPT, on the other hand, took a few minutes to generate code and wasn’t able to run it in the chat environment. Instead, I had to create an HTML file and paste the code to run it in Chrome.
ChatGPT’s to-do list results were better, however. There was more visual pop than Claude’s.
As for generating images, ChatGPT is the clear winner in this comparison because Claude is a text-only model. It can’t generate images.
I asked ChatGPT to generate an image of a suave Indian man in a turban driving a Porsche 987 Cayman.
ChatGPT is more feature-rich, but I really do like Claude
It’s a classic quality versus quantity conundrum. As an AI chatbot, ChatGPT does a better job of pulling relevant information from the web, integrating online assets within the chat and has a voice assistant that actually works as intended. Plus, ChatGPT can generate images. Still, I can’t help but be drawn to Claude. It communicates in a way that sounds more human and isn’t nearly as obsequious as ChatGPT.
If Claude can bolster its features, I’d gladly recommend it over ChatGPT for most people. But, as it stands, ChatGPT just offers more. If price is a major consideration, Claude is a tad cheaper if you buy the annual membership. But the $3 monthly savings won’t dramatically alter my recommendation.
So, unless you really prefer a more human-like chatbot and aren’t as big a fan of using voice mode, ChatGPT is probably the way to go.
