01 AI chat on an infinite canvas best for: Branching you can actually see
Every other tool on this list hides branches behind arrows, dropdowns, or forked-off copies. NodePad puts the conversation itself on a canvas: forks are visible parallel paths, exact messages are pulled across chats with @, and merges draft from several threads at once, with Claude, GPT, and Gemini picked per message. Hosted (with self-hosting available), not BYOK, and no local models; if those are hard requirements, read on.
pricing · Free on community models; paid plans from $5/mo, every paid plan reaches every model.
02 The open-source ChatGPT clone, in the best sense best for: Teams self-hosting a familiar UI
MIT-licensed and genuinely free, with the broadest provider support of the group (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Bedrock, OpenRouter, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint), agents, MCP, and multi-user auth. Conversations are a message tree internally, but the UI keeps branches hidden behind per-message arrows; Fork spins a branch off into a new chat. The stack (Docker, MongoDB, Meilisearch) is the heaviest here.
pricing · Free and open source (MIT); you pay the model APIs.
03 The local-model powerhouse best for: Ollama-first setups with cloud mixed in
First-class local models, folders with per-project knowledge bases, multi-model side-by-side chats, and a Chat Overview diagram that comes closest to showing a conversation's shape (read-only, though). Note the license: since April 2025 it is source-available with a branding clause at fifty-plus users, not OSI open source; commercial deployments should read it first.
pricing · Free to self-host; enterprise license for white-labeling.
04 The polished BYOK frontend best for: One-time purchase over subscriptions
A hosted web frontend for ~18 providers with your own keys, bought once ($39 to $99) instead of rented. Folders, prompt library, agents, and multi-model parallel chats; "Fork chat from here" copies context into a new, separate linear conversation rather than a visible branch. Features are sliced noticeably across the three license tiers.
pricing · One-time $39 / $79 / $99, plus your API costs.
05 The privacy-first desktop studio best for: Local-first work with real branch tooling
A polished desktop app (no account, local storage) running local and cloud models, with the most serious branching of the linear-chat group: Edit as Branch preserves paths, and Branch Explorer diffs two branches side by side. Split Chats run models in synced panes. Closed source, and the power features sit behind the $149/yr Aurum tier.
pricing · Free core; Aurum $149/yr or $349 lifetime.
06 The offline-first minimalist best for: Running models fully offline
Open source (Apache-2.0), free, and built around llama.cpp: download a model and chat with zero cloud involved, or add BYOK cloud providers. The leanest feature set here (linear chats, no branching or folders), and its local API server lets other apps use Jan as a backend.
pricing · Free and open source; your hardware runs the models.