ChatGPT vs Meta AI: Which AI chatbot is better after the Llama 4 launch?

Meta released two new Lama 4 AI models on Saturday: Llama 4 Maverick and Llama 4 Scout. The two model launches come shortly after OpenAI unlocked native image generation capabilities in ChatGPT, allowing the chatbot to generate more nuanced, accurate and photorealistic images that have wowed users on social media and led to the Studio Ghibli-themed image generation trend. But with Meta also catching up with ChatGPT by introducing new models, how do the two AI chatbots compare? Here's a detailed comparison.

Meta vs ChatGPT: Which chatbot is better?

Benchmarks:

In theory, Meta states that its Llama 4 Maverick model has an upper hand over OpenAI's GPT-4o model in coding, reasoning, multilingual, long context, and image benchmarks. In the LMarena leaderboard - at the time of writing, Llama 4 Maverick leads both GPT-4o and GPT-4.5 Preview, and is in second place behind the Gemini 2.5 Pro (Experimental) model. However, it is important to note that these benchmarks are often fluid and results can change as new updates are rolled out.

While Meta claims that Llama 4 Maverick excels at creative writing and precise image generation related tasks, there is usually no conclusive way to prove this short of using both ChatGPT and new Meta AI models for similar queries over a long period of time.

Image generation:

While Meta has made bold claims about Llama 4 models being natively multimodal (able to understand and respond to image prompts), many of these features are currently limited to the United States and in English, with no news on when the feature will be rolled out to other countries.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT's native image generator certainly seems to be the best free alternative currently available on the market, with options to not only generate more contextual and photorealistic images, but also to edit user-uploaded images in different styles.

We also tried generating images using the current image generator in Meta AI and the results were disappointing to say the least, especially when compared to ChatGPT's new feature.

Other important features:

While Meta's new model is a huge upgrade over its predecessor, the AI chatbot of the same model falls short of ChatGPT for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Meta does not have a reasoning model, and a Llama 4 Reasoning model is likely to be announced at the LlamaCon conference on 29 April. In case you're not aware, reasoning models such as OpenAI's o1 and o3-Mini or DeepSeek R1 take a bit longer to analyse a request and aim to mimic human-like thought processes to provide better answers to more complex questions, especially in the fields of math, science and coding.

Llama 4 Maverick isn't exactly the top of the line model from Meta either, which will be Llama 4 Behemoth, due to be released at a later date, competing with GPT-4.5 and Claude Sonnet 3.7.

Additionally, ChatGPT recently got a Deep Research mode that allows the chatbot to perform a rigorous search of the web to find what OpenAI claims are research assistant level answers. While the end results may not always match the company's claims, it's still an important tool to have in order to conduct a comprehensive search of the web, as evidenced by the adoption by Perplexity AI, Grok, and Gemini.

Pricing and availability:

Llama 4 Maverick currently doesn't seem to have any restrictions on use or image generation for free users, and can be used via Meta's suite of apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, which makes it much easier to use.

OpenAI, on the other hand, typically limits access to its latest model to a few messages, after which it switches to the older model. There is also currently a limit of 3 pictures per day for free users, and you have to register on the OpenAI website or app to start using the chatbot.