Free Alternatives to Paid AI Tools: A Step-by-Step Guide to the Free Alternatives Section

Go to dijikocum.com/yapay-zeka/alternatifler. No sign-up required; it's free.

The page title is "What can you use instead of a paid tool?". Right below it is the site's own note: it lists what you gain and what you lose (setup, hardware, license, commercial use), but output quality isn't yet compared in the site's own Turkish-language test. Use it with that in mind.

The list has 25 paid tools (November 1, 2026), in alphabetical order: Botpress, Canva, CapCut, ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Crisp, Cursor, DeepL, Dify, ElevenLabs, Gamma, Gemini, Grammarly, Kling AI, Lovable, Make, Microsoft Copilot, Notion, Perplexity, Photoroom, Picsart, PixVerse, QuillBot, Typebot.

Each card shows:

• "Instead of …": which paid tool it replaces.
• Access chip: the status of that paid tool, e.g. "Free tier" (it has a limited free plan) or "Paid".
• The names of the alternatives and how many options there are (e.g. "3 alternatives").

Tapping the card opens that tool's pair page (e.g. "What to use instead of ChatGPT?"). At the very top of the page is a "Quality not compared" box: the differences are taken from the information on the tools' own pages.

Next comes the Side by side table. The paid tool and 1–3 options appear side by side, in these rows:

• Access: Free, Free tier or Open source.
• Where it runs: in the browser/app (cloud) or on your own computer.
• Free limit: how much you can use on the free plan.
• Price: the TL price and a note on plans priced in foreign currency.
• Info as of: when this information was checked.

Wherever you see "—" in the table, that item hasn't been checked yet.

In the Alternatives and how they differ section below the table, each option has two rows:

• Difference: what you gain and what you lose compared with the paid tool.
• Who it's for: who this option is useful for.

The data notes are what you should pay the most attention to here. For example, DeepSeek's card says that data is collected and stored in China and that customer or employee data should not be entered. With options that run "On your own computer," like Ollama, data doesn't leave your machine, but setup is required and speed depends on your computer's memory.

Try the paid tool and the alternative you picked on the same task: have them write the same text, summarize the same document, answer the same question. Compare the results yourself; make the decision after that.

• If the free option does the job, you can consider canceling your subscription before it renews.
• If it doesn't, you now know what the paid plan unlocks; you pay knowingly.

Important: don't run the test with work that contains sensitive customer information, contracts or personal data. Use a fictional or publicly available text for the test.

• DeepSeek instead of ChatGPT Plus ($20/month; ₺999.99/month on the Turkey App Store): completely free, but data is stored in China; don't enter customer information. (In the site's table, ChatGPT's main price is the Go plan at about $5.00 (₺249.99) (converted at the TCMB rate of November 5, 2026: $1 = ₺50.05); Plus at ₺999.99 is listed in the price note as the Turkey App Store price.)
• Gemini Notebook instead of Claude Pro ($20/month; ₺999.99/month on the Turkey App Store): upload a long PDF and it answers while showing its source. The free plan lists 100 notebooks and up to 50 sources per notebook; it's not a general chat assistant, it works tied to your documents.
• Gemini's free plan instead of Perplexity Pro ($20/month; ₺999.99/month on the Turkey App Store): sourced reports with Deep Research (usage is limited). Still click through and check that the sources are accurate.

The prices are the TL prices in the guide, October 8, 2026. For someone paying for all three, that comes to $60 a month and $720 a year (₺2,999.97 a month, ₺35,999.64 a year on the Turkey App Store). Prices may change; check the information date on the page.

• Café: To write menu descriptions, open the Instead of ChatGPT card and try DeepSeek. Menu text isn't sensitive data, but don't enter customer names, phone numbers or order lists.
• Real estate office: For a building management plan or a long specification document, pick Gemini Notebook from the Instead of Claude card; upload the PDF, ask "list the clauses about maintenance fees and parking," and check the section the answer came from.
• Dietitian: To research competitors' package prices in your area, open Gemini's free plan from the Instead of Perplexity card and ask Deep Research for a sourced report; click through the sources one by one.
• E-commerce: For product photos, look at the Instead of Photoroom card. The option there is open source; don't start before reading the setup and hardware note on the card, and if setup is hard, sticking with the paid tool's free plan may make more sense.

If you like an open-source option but setting it up feels hard, there's a setup support link at the bottom of the page; the guide stays free. If the tool you're looking for isn't on the list, find tools that do the same job by filtering by task in the Tool Atlas.

The guide is free. If you get stuck anywhere, message @dijikocum on Instagram.