ChatGPT
OpenAI's conversational AI assistant for chat, search, coding, voice and image tasks.
Commenters use it for web search and research,123 coding help and planning,456 and voice conversations and tutoring.789 The most common complaint is errors and hallucinations,101112 and some also report a buggy, shifting app interface.1314
Why people recommend it
Coding help · 3
Used for planning hard tasks, porting plugins and quickly building small apps.
“for things I know will be quite hard I tend to get ChatGPT to do the planning. Works very well.”
“I ported one of my favorite plugins from Chrome to Safari using ChatGPT.”
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“Talked to chatgpt and 20 minutes later on their $20/m plan I had an app”
Search and research · 3
Several commenters now use it instead of Google or Perplexity for searches.
“I use ChatGPT for almost all my searches now.”
“ChatGPT will almost always do one or more web searches for any query about recent or historical events.”
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“If I want to do actual research or AI assisted web searching I have Claude or ChatGPT do it. The results are so much higher quality”
Learning and repairs · 3
Praised as a tutor and for guiding hardware, electronics and home repairs.
“ChatGPT is amazing as a tutor and teacher.”
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“They are great help and provide me invaluable advice.”
Voice mode · 3
Commenters enjoy voice conversations and say it understands their speech well.
“I love talking to chatgpt voice mode.”
“Overall love hearing how other people are using chatGPT voice and or any other AI voice conversationalist tech.”
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“ChatGPT and Claude have no trouble understanding what I’m saying”
Integrations · 3
Connections to Gmail and Drive and the desktop apps save users time.
“I already have chatgpt connected to gmail and drive, which is very useful for me and saving me lots of time already.”
“Now I am 100% in the ChatGPT desktop app”
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“native built-in browser integration, links, etc which the (Mac) desktop apps like ChatGPT or Claude offer”
Plan value · 3
The $20/month Plus plan is described as good value.
“I'm still paying for a ChatGPT Plus plan since $20/mo gives me a lot of value”
“Talked to chatgpt and 20 minutes later on their $20/m plan I had an app”
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“I ported one of my favorite plugins from Chrome to Safari using ChatGPT.”
Caveats and dissent
Errors, hallucinations · 3
Users report wrong answers, hallucinations and code that needs heavy fixing.
“it was making frequent errors and hallucinations when dealing with more obscure Linux and Firefox issues”
“The code they supplied to me has NEVER worked or was so convoluted that I threw it away and did it myself.”
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“If you talk to free chatgpt, sure.”
Buggy apps · 3
Commenters describe a shifting chat UI, frequent bugs and failing integrations.
“the main chat UI moves around like 3 times during load so you constantly click the wrong buttons”
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“multiple rounds of "I can't see that document" despite having the plugin configured”
Sycophantic tone · 2
Some find it flattering or uncomfortably humanlike in tone.
“it is disgustingly scyophantic to the point I was grossed out”
“It still makes me feel odd when ChatGPT says something like "I feel the same way"”
Images and slides · 2
Image generation and PowerPoint creation are called inconsistent or weak.
“There's no chance in hell they are doing consistent high-quality work in ChatGPT 90% of the time.”
“while chatgpt struggling to even create basic shapes”
Privacy concerns · 1
Some commenters worry about OpenAI training on user sessions.
“This says that they trained on user sessions.”
Ads and opacity · 2
Commenters object to in-app ads and to the desktop app hiding how it stores state.
“I saw them today in the app and yeah… first idea - enshitification. Ads were cringe.”
“I got sick of OpenAI hiding how ChatGPT Desktop was working.”
Often compared with
9 moved from Claude to ChatGPT
12 moved from ChatGPT to Claude
5 moved from Gemini to ChatGPT
10 moved from ChatGPT to Gemini
1 moved from Claude Code to ChatGPT
1 moved from ChatGPT to Claude Code
1 moved from ChatGPT to Codex
4 moved from ChatGPT to GrokGoogle Search10 comments mention both
7 moved from Google Search to ChatGPT
1 moved from Claude Opus to ChatGPT
1 moved from ChatGPT to Claude Opus
2 moved from Perplexity to ChatGPT
Who recommends it in their own words
From the makers not counted in the ranking
“There's no reason to believe that anything they did in ChatGPT led to our solution”
“I have built a custom GPT that marks essays for the subject I teach in a repeatable and reliable way.”
Threads where it came up
- What was your "Oh Shit" moment with GenAI? 9 mentions
- GPT‑Live 5 mentions
- Apple HomeView 4 mentions
- Gemini 3.8 Live and 3.8 Live Extended Thinking 4 mentions
- Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow? (June 2026) 4 mentions
- Ask HN: Which LLM are you using to evaluate your ideas? 4 mentions
Also written as ChatGPT Desktop, ChatGPT 5.2, ChatGPT 5.5, ChatGPT 5.1. Data: chatgpt.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 49
“that's the only reason I use ChatGPT instead even though I prefer Claude's current model”
“I use it as if it were a close, intimate friend that knows how to listen”
“Gemini so far has also had terrible computer-use capability or tool-use capability compared to ChatGPT”
“These days, I have claude and chatgpt. They search on my behalf.”
“it feels they deliberately made it ridiculously stupid (for fun?). I know, they were first, but today it's a joke.”
“Nowadays I ask ChatGPT or Claude instead of Google”
“I asked ChatGPT and it answered Joe Biden.”
“I have a mid level Claude and ChatGPT subscription and I’m blasting through my usage”
“every time I use ChapGPT and similar, I get results which take work to optimize, so it saves me little time, if any.”
“I'm still paying for a ChatGPT Plus plan since $20/mo gives me a lot of value”
“I use Kimi, chatGPT (Astra/Sol), and Claude (Opus 5.5)”
“I got our pocket god ChatGPT to fact check this discussion.”
“I switched to ChatGPT just as Astra came out.”
“someone using Claude/ChatGPT there is still a human there”
“IMX, ChatGPT usually writes un-annotated new code unless you specifically ask for annotations.”
“multiple rounds of "I can't see that document" despite having the plugin configured”
“ChatGPT often helps me track down some of the people behind my favorite games”
“ChatGPT in various incarnations has suddenly switched to Chinese in mid-output”
“I use Claude and ChatGPT all the time for work”
“Content from a couple of my ChatGPT 6 Pro sessions about the issue:”
“I just asked ChatGPT how to make the thing I made”
“Now I am 100% in the ChatGPT desktop app”
“For tasks that I've worked with it on, I've been reasonably impressed by it.”
“If you are using ChatGPT you are just working as a teacher for free.”
“it is better to chat with free ChatGPT and do copying-pasting between web chat and code editor”
“Talked to chatgpt and 20 minutes later on their $20/m plan I had an app”
“through the Claude and ChatGPT apps which would both blow away Siri”
“ChatGPT is amazing, and knows me and never makes any of those mistakes”
“I use OpenAI/ChatGPT + FAL.AI MCP to do this regularly and I have minimal issues”
“the main chat UI moves around like 3 times during load so you constantly click the wrong buttons”
“I ported one of my favorite plugins from Chrome to Safari using ChatGPT.”
“Overall love hearing how other people are using chatGPT voice and or any other AI voice conversationalist tech.”
“I use conversational voice AI while driving”
“ChatGPT will almost always do one or more web searches for any query about recent or historical events.”
“ChatGPT and Claude have no trouble understanding what I’m saying”
“So we use ChatGPT or Claude”
“ChatGPT's context-aware translation is better, but it's not on-device.”
“Even ChatGPT 3.5 is more logical.”
“There's no chance in hell they are doing consistent high-quality work in ChatGPT 90% of the time.”
“If you talk to free chatgpt, sure.”
“for things I know will be quite hard I tend to get ChatGPT to do the planning. Works very well.”
“ChatGPT is amazing as a tutor and teacher.”
“The code they supplied to me has NEVER worked or was so convoluted that I threw it away and did it myself.”
“70% of the times is unusable and buggy”
“For coding and image editing, right now I find ChatGPT superior.”
“I love talking to chatgpt voice mode.”
“it was making frequent errors and hallucinations when dealing with more obscure Linux and Firefox issues”
“I use ChatGPT for almost all my searches now.”
“If I want to do actual research or AI assisted web searching I have Claude or ChatGPT do it. The results are so much higher quality”