AeliusUnlimited messages
No daily cap, no monthly cap, no credits to run out.
ChatGPT Plus costs $20 a month. Aelius costs nothing.
AI without the meter. Chat, documents, code and images, all uncapped.
Unlimited uploads
PDFs, spreadsheets and photos, read together. As many as the question needs.
Unlimited images
No daily cap and no watermark. Ask for a change and the next one edits the last.
Search the web when it matters.
Choose how hard it thinks.
Runs without you.
Aelius calls its own tools mid-answer, sets reminders that reach you by email and phone, runs scheduled tasks unattended and reports back in chat, and serves a coding agent for VS Code, Cline or Continue. Reminders, tasks and the Python sandbox need a free account.
Aelius vs. every other AI.
Published limits, August 2026.
| Limit | ChatGPT Free | Claude Free | Gemini Free | Aelius |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Messages per day | Dynamic cap | About 15 to 40 per 5 hours | Unlimited text | No daily cap |
| Image uploads per day | 2 per 24 hours | Counted against messages | Meterednumber not published | No daily cap |
| Image generation per day | Daily cap | Not offered | Meterednumber not published | No daily cap |
| Price to lift the caps | $20 per monthChatGPT Plus | $20 per monthClaude Pro | $19.99 per monthGoogle AI Pro | $0 |
"Metered" means the vendor applies a limit but does not publish the number.
Integrate us into
your VS Code.
The same loop as Claude Code, in the editor you already have.
The whole setup. No plugin.
export OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://code.aeliusai.com/v1 export OPENAI_API_KEY=$AELIUS_KEY export OPENAI_MODEL=qwen3.8-27b
Speaks to
Qwen Code
opencode
Cline
Continue
Roo Code
Aider
anything OpenAI compatible
The same class of model.
At no cost.
How it is served
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index v4.1.1, higher is better
Claude Opus 5
63.0
GPT-5.6 Sol
58.9
Claude Opus 4.8
57.3
DeepSeek V4 Pro
53.2
GLM-5.2
52.6
Aelius (Qwen3.8)
52.0
GPT-5.6 Luna
51.2
Gemini 3 Pro
40.6
GPT-5.1
37.5
Kimi K2.5
36.0
Claude Opus 4.5
35.6
Read August 2026: a composite of nine evaluations run the same way for every model, reasoning models at their maximum setting. Eleven of the 181 models on the board: the leader, the four either side of us, and the flagships we are above. Bars start at zero.
90.3LiveCodeBench v6
61.7SWE-bench Pro, agentic coding
73.0Terminal-Bench 2.1
30.8Humanity's Last Exam, no tools
Private by default.
Read the privacy policyNever trained on, never sold.
Delete means gone.
Incognito is really incognito.
No trackers, no ad IDs.
What we hold about you.Struck through: never held. Dashed: only if you choose.
Real name
Phone number
Payment details
Location
Device fingerprint
Advertising IDs
Email address
Your conversations
The same model,
over HTTPS.
Our own JSON API for vision and schema-checked output, called from your own code. Access is asked for and granted by a person, not handed out on signup — which is what keeps the queue short enough to be worth having. Separate from Aelius Code above: that one is free with any account and needs no request.
curl -X POST https://aeliusai.com/api/ext/v1/vision \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $AELIUS_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{ "prompt": "What is in this picture?", "images": ["https://example.com/photo.jpg"], "thinking": false }' # Response { "text": "…", "finish_reason": "stop", "usage": { "prompt_tokens": 1308, "completion_tokens": 638 } }
import base64, requests with open("document.jpg", "rb") as f: b64 = base64.b64encode(f.read()).decode() r = requests.post( "https://aeliusai.com/api/ext/v1/vision", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {KEY}"}, json={ "prompt": "Extract the document's title and date.", "images": [b64], "json_schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "title": {"type": ["string", "null"]}, "date": {"type": ["string", "null"]}, }, "required": ["title", "date"], }, "thinking": False, }, timeout=120, ) print(r.json()["json"])
// From your server, not the browser. const form = new FormData(); form.append("image", file); form.append("options", JSON.stringify({ prompt: "Describe this image in one sentence.", thinking: false, })); const res = await fetch("https://aeliusai.com/api/ext/v1/vision", { method: "POST", headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.AELIUS_KEY}` }, body: form, }); const { text, usage } = await res.json();
Text, vision and JSON.Give it a schema and every response parses. Your own system prompt and sampling.
ael_sk_ keys, reviewed before issue
Keys stored as a SHA-256 hash only
429 carries Retry-After
X-Request-Id on every response
Request access
Want it in your editor? Aelius Code, free
Tell us what you are building and we will come back to you. Free either way — the review is about capacity, not price.
Questions people ask.
Answered straight. The limits, the privacy terms and what it costs, in plain words.
Is Aelius a free ChatGPT alternative?
Yes. Aelius is a free AI chat assistant with unlimited messages, unlimited file uploads and free image generation. It answers questions, writes and reviews code, reads your documents, and is never trained on what you type.
How is Aelius free?
Aelius runs open-weights models on hardware we own and operate ourselves, so there is no per-token API bill to pass on to you. What it costs us is electricity, which does not climb with every message the way an API bill would.
Are there message limits?
There is no daily or monthly message cap and there are no credits to run out. A short rate limit exists to stop automated abuse, and ordinary conversation does not come close to it.
Do I need an account to use Aelius?
No. You can start a conversation straight away without signing up. A free account keeps your chat history across devices and lifts the limits that apply to guests.
Is there a limit on file and image uploads?
There is no upload meter and no monthly allowance. Attach as many files as a question needs.
Do you train on my conversations?
No. Your conversations are never used to train a model, and they are never sold or handed to advertisers.
Are my chats stored, and can I delete them?
Chats are saved to your account so you can come back to them. You can permanently delete any conversation, or delete your account and everything in it. Incognito chats are never written to disk at all.
Start without an account.
Ask something now. Sign up when you want your history kept.