15Free and cheap

Good news: free works. Bad news: honestly, they're still noticeably weaker. The Chinese models have shot forward and can do a lot, but Claude and Codex are still well ahead - on hard tasks you see the gap immediately.

That doesn't mean "don't use them". It means use them knowing what you're using.

Qwen - from Alibaba, with a separate code mode. Probably the most all-round of the free ones.

Kimi - good on long texts and analysis.

DeepSeek - strong on code, and through the API the prices look like a typo next to everyone else.

Z.ai - a cheap subscription rather than a free tier, but generous for the money.

MiMo - from Xiaomi, free, worth a try.

Honestly about the downsides. Limits are tighter than on paid plans. On long, complex tasks they run out of steam earlier. Some are weaker outside English. And pairing them with agent tooling like Claude Code is harder.

How I'd use them: learn, experiment, do small things. And when you hit the ceiling - that's the moment paying starts to make sense.