HuggingChat vs ChatGPT: The Chat Battle has Now Begun
The release of HuggingChat, an open-source AI platform, has provided an alternative to ChatGPT. HuggingChat offers various functionalities and integrations, catering to both developers and users. The sleek blue interface of HuggingChat is similar to ChatGPT, with conversation points and a history of conversations on the left.
One of the key differences between the two models is the data set on which they were trained. HuggingChat was trained with the OpenAssistant Conversations Dataset (OASST1), containing data collected up to April 12, 2023. The dataset is the result of a worldwide crowdsourcing effort by over 13,000 volunteers and includes 161,443 messages distributed across 66,497 conversation trees in 35 different languages, annotated with 461,292 quality ratings. On the other hand, ChatGPT’s data set is currently unavailable.
ChatGPT provides structured and well-formatted answers but does not take a stance on any subject. On the contrary, Hugging Face answers in a much more personalised manner and tends to address itself in the first person. However, at certain instances, HuggingChat provides updated answers, but they can be incorrect.
In terms of coding, HuggingChat gives code at once, whereas ChatGPT provides instructions for the free GPT-3.5 model and provides a code with in-depth instructions to follow for the paid GPT-4 model.
Another parameter to consider is that the cost of using ChatGPT depends on which large language model (LLM) is being used — GPT-3.5 or GPT-4. The highly anticipated GPT-4 was integrated into ChatGPT in March 2023. Currently, the paid version costs $20 on a monthly basis. In contrast, HuggingChat is open-source and free to use.
While HuggingChat may be new and promising, ChatGPT is currently the superior choice due to its established reputation and range of features. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how HuggingChat develops and whether it can challenge ChatGPT’s dominance in the chatbot market. Another option that developers can look at is Databricks’ Dolly 2.0.
