Skip to main content

I Built an AI Tools Directory with 1,700 Side-by-Side Comparisons — Here's Everything I Learned

Six months ago I started building AsmiAI — an independent AI tools directory. Today it has 250 manually reviewed AI products, 1,700 auto-generated comparison pages, and a free AI chat advisor that recommends tools based on what you need. Here is everything I learned building it.

Why I built it

I was frustrated with existing AI tool directories. Most charge tools for top rankings, which means the "best" tools are just the ones that paid the most. Others are clearly outdated — listing tools that shut down months ago with no reviews or pricing information. I wanted something honest. Every tool on AsmiAI is manually reviewed. Sponsored listings are clearly labelled. Rankings are based on ratings, not payments.

What AsmiAI covers

250 AI tools across 29 categories:
  • AI Chatbots — 22 tools including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity
  • AI Coding Tools — 30 tools including Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Codeium
  • AI Image Generators — 21 tools including Midjourney, DALL-E 3, Adobe Firefly
  • AI Video Generators — 22 tools including Runway, Sora, Kling AI
  • AI Writing Tools — 18 tools
  • AI Productivity Tools — 29 tools
  • AI Voice Generators — 11 tools
  • AI Research Tools — 11 tools
  • And 21 more categories
Every tool page includes honest pricing, free plan availability, a star rating, pros and cons, and side-by-side comparisons with alternatives.

The 1,700 comparison pages

The most interesting part of AsmiAI is the comparison engine. Every tool in the same category is automatically compared against every other tool — generating pages like:
  • ChatGPT vs Claude 2026
  • Cursor vs GitHub Copilot 2026
  • Midjourney vs DALL-E 3 2026
  • Runway vs Sora 2026
After tracking 1,700 comparisons, here is what I learned about what people actually want to know: 1. Claude is the most compared tool — 69 comparison pages. People are clearly trying to figure out if Claude is worth switching to from ChatGPT. 2. Coding tools are the hottest category — 30 tools and growing. Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, and Codeium are all competing for the same developers. 3. Free tier matters more than features — The most common question is not "what can it do" but "is the free plan actually useful." 60% of tools now offer a free tier. 4. Video AI is still disappointing — 22 tools reviewed and most are either expensive, slow, or produce uncanny valley results. Runway and Sora are ahead but not ready to replace human video editors. 5. People compare before they buy — The average visitor views 3-4 comparison pages before clicking through to a tool. They are not browsing — they are deciding.

The free AI chat advisor

One of my favourite features is the AI chat advisor at asmiai.xyz/ask/ You describe what you need — "I want a free tool to generate images for my blog" or "What is the best AI coding assistant for a Python developer" — and it recommends tools from the directory with direct links. The key difference from generic chatbots: it is grounded in my actual inventory. The AI can only recommend the 250 tools that are reviewed and listed on AsmiAI. No hallucinated tools, no outdated suggestions. It is powered by Llama 3.1 via Groq and is completely free to use.

What the data shows about AI tool trends in 2026

After reviewing 250 tools and tracking comparison patterns, here are the trends I see: The LLM wars are not over. Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok are all improving rapidly. No clear winner yet — the right choice depends on your specific use case. Coding AI is replacing junior tasks. Cursor and GitHub Copilot are not just autocomplete anymore. They write entire functions, debug complex issues, and explain codebases. The developer workflow has fundamentally changed. Image generation has matured. Midjourney V6, DALL-E 3, and Adobe Firefly are now good enough for professional use in most marketing contexts. Voice AI is underrated. ElevenLabs and similar tools have reached a quality level where the output is indistinguishable from real voices in most use cases. This category will explode in the next 12 months. The free tier is the new freemium. Tools with no free plan are losing to tools with generous free tiers. The market has spoken — people want to try before they pay.

How I built it

The entire site is static HTML/CSS/JavaScript with a Node.js and Python build system. No database. No framework. No monthly hosting costs. Every page is generated at build time from JSON data files. One command regenerates all 2,373 pages and deploys to Cloudflare Pages in under 2 minutes. GitHub Actions runs a daily cron that rebuilds and redeploys the entire site automatically. The AI chat advisor refreshes its tool knowledge on every build.

Try it yourself

AsmiAI is completely free to use at asmiai.xyz The public JSON API with all 250 tools is available free at
">asmiai.xyz/api/tools.json — licensed CC BY 4.0, no authentication required.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to install V8js for Php on Mac OS X

I recently had interest in generating a React-based web app using PHP. To be able to do such an amazing thing you first need to install the PHP extension V8Js. You’ll find below the process I followed to install it on my Mac: First install the engine: brew install v8 Install dependency for the PECL Extension: brew install autoconf Update Pear: cd /usr/lib/php sudo php install-pear-nozlib.phar Then edit your php.ini by adding the following line next existing include_path if not already there include_path = ".:/usr/lib/php/pear" Update/Upgrade Pear / PECL sudo pear channel-update pear.php.net sudo pecl channel-update pecl.php.net sudo pear upgrade-all Grab V8Js PECL Extension from github & install it cd ~ mkdir tmp && cd tmp git clone git@github.com:preillyme/v8js.git cd v8js phpize ./configure CXXFLAGS = "-Wno-c++11-narrowing" make make test # if this step fails you can try make install anyway, should work. make ins...
2 comments
Read more

how to inform website owner about broken links

The first step in broken link building is to find broken links. Pick a particular domain: Chances are there’re a few authority sites in your niche that you’re dying to get a link from, but maybe you can’t find your “in.” This is a perfect opportunity for broken link building. Once you find broken links find contact information of site owner and send mail and inform that there website is have broken links and ask them to replace the broken link with your link.
4 comments
Read more

Awesome Thing About PHP Most of People Don't Know

Extract is your friend.  Ever been in the situation where you need to say something like: <?php $name = $array['name']; $surname = $array['surname']; $message = $array['message']; Then you may want to recall that you can use extract() to do the same. Put simply, extract will remove the work behind this. In this case, saying: <?php extract($array); Will automatically make $name = $array['name']; So, you can say "hello ".$name." ".$surname." Without do all of the declarations. Of course, you always need to be mindful of validation and filtering, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do anything with PHP.
2 comments
Read more