AI Tricks Lab

Best Free Alternatives to Midjourney in 2026 Midjourney makes some of the most beautiful AI images on the internet, but there is one catch: it costs money. There is no free trial and no free tier, so if you are a student, a blogger, or just someone who wants to play around with AI art, paying a monthly subscription just to experiment feels like too much. That is exactly why people search for free alternatives to Midjourney. The good news is that you do not need Midjourney to make great AI images. Several tools offer generous free plans that produce genuinely impressive results, posters, thumbnails, blog illustrations, even art prints. This guide compares five of the best free alternatives to Midjourney, based on documented features and widely reported strengths, so you can pick the right one for what you want to make. The 30-Second Verdict Pick Leonardo AI if you want the closest thing to Midjourney quality, with lots of artistic control. Pick Ideogram if your images need read...

QuillBot vs Grammarly: Which Free Writing Tool Should You Use? Ask two different people which writing tool is better and you will get two different answers, one swears by QuillBot, the other cannot imagine writing without Grammarly. The confusion is understandable, because the QuillBot vs Grammarly debate looks like a simple either-or choice, but the two tools were actually built to solve different problems. This is an honest breakdown based on documented features and how these tools are actually used. The 30-Second Verdict Pick Grammarly if your main problem is mistakes. Typos, grammar errors, clumsy sentences. Grammarly catches them in real time, everywhere you type. Pick QuillBot if your main problem is rewriting. Restating an idea in different words, smoothing out an awkward sentence, varying your vocabulary. Use both if you write a lot. They complement each other nicely, and both have genuinely useful free tiers. Short on time? Pick the one that matches your biggest w...

How to Use ChatGPT to Learn English: A Beginner's Guide Learning English gets much easier when you have someone patient to practice with, someone who never gets tired of your questions and is available at 2 AM. This guide shows you how to learn English with ChatGPT, the most popular AI assistant, through practical methods that work for complete beginners. Here's the honest truth: ChatGPT won't make you fluent by itself. But used well, it's one of the best free English practice tools around, combining a patient tutor, a grammar coach, and a conversation partner in one place. You just need to know how to ask for what you need. If you haven't picked your AI assistant yet, our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini comparison helps beginners choose the right one. 1. ChatGPT : Your Personal English Tutor ChatGPT is the centerpiece here. Its free tier covers everything you need: chatting, explanations, corrections, and conversation practice. The big advantage over a textbook ...

Best Free AI Tools for Teachers in 2026 If you are a teacher, your Sundays probably look like this: a stack of grading, a blank lesson plan template, and a vague plan to "just get ahead a little." The good news is that free AI tools for teachers have become genuinely useful in 2026, good enough to take real hours off your weekly workload, not just party tricks. Here's the honest part: not every tool marketed to teachers is worth opening. Some lock the useful features behind expensive school licenses, some give you bland worksheets that no student would enjoy, and some invent facts with total confidence. This list only includes tools with genuinely useful free tiers that solve real classroom problems, lesson planning, grading support, research, and creating materials that look professional, chosen based on documented features and widely reported classroom use cases. Let's get into it. Your students are almost certainly using AI too. Our roundup of the best free AI...

Notion AI vs ChatGPT for Note-Taking: Which Is Better? If you take notes for a living, or just for studying, you have probably wondered about Notion AI vs ChatGPT. One lives inside your notes app, ready to clean up messy pages with a click. The other is a conversation partner you paste your notes into and chat with. Both promise to make note-taking easier, but they work in completely different ways. Here is the short version: Notion AI is better if your notes already live in Notion and you want an assistant built into your workspace. ChatGPT is better if you want deeper conversations about your notes, creative brainstorming, and flexibility across any topic or format. Most productive people will get value from both, but this guide will help you pick the right one for how you actually take notes. Everything below is based on documented features and common note-taking workflows, not on hidden test results. Let's break it down honestly. Students can also check our roundup of the ...

5 Free AI Image Generators Compared AI image generators have gone from novelty to genuinely useful in a remarkably short time. Whether you need a blog header, a presentation visual, a logo concept, or just want to experiment, there's a free tool that can do it. But they differ a lot. Some are great at photorealism but terrible at text. Some are free but painfully slow. This comparison covers five of the best free options, judged on the kinds of prompts a beginner would actually use, with descriptions of what the results typically look like, so you know what to expect before you try. How This Comparison Was Put Together Each tool is assessed on practical, beginner-style prompts (not expert prompt-engineering magic), its stated free limits, and three criteria: quality (does it look good?), accuracy (does it match the prompt?), and usability (how smooth is the free experience?). The comparison draws on documented features, free-tier terms, and widely reported user experiences...

How to Use AI for Job Applications: Resumes and Cover Letters That Get Noticed Applying for jobs is exhausting. Tailoring every resume, writing every cover letter from scratch, trying to guess what the hiring manager wants, it's a grind. AI can't get you hired on its own, but it can take a process that used to eat your weekends and shrink it to an hour or two per application. Here's the thing most guides won't tell you: the people getting results with AI aren't asking it to "write my resume." They're using it strategically, at specific steps, while keeping their own judgment in charge. This guide shows you exactly how to use AI for job applications. Step 1: Research the Role Before You Write a Word Before touching your resume, use AI to understand what you're applying for. Most candidates skip this and it shows. What to do: Paste the job description into ChatGPT or Claude and ask: "Analyze this job description. What are the top 5 s...

7 Free AI Writing Tools That Actually Work The internet is flooded with "AI writing tools," and most of them are disappointing, either the free version is useless or the output reads like a robot wrote it. This guide rounds up the ones genuinely worth your time for real writing tasks: blog posts, essays, emails, product descriptions, based on documented features and widely reported results. These seven are genuinely worth your time. For each, this guide covers what it's genuinely good at and where it falls apart, because every tool has a weakness, and the marketing pages won't tell you about them. Still choosing your main assistant? Start with our ChatGPT vs Claude vs Gemini comparison . 1. ChatGPT : Best Free All-Purpose Writing Assistant Let's start with the obvious one. ChatGPT's free tier is still the most capable free writing assistant available. It can draft, rewrite, summarize, change tone, generate ideas, and fix grammar, all in a natural conver...