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5 Free (and Affordable) ChatGPT Alternatives for Online Homework Help

Looking for reliable online homework help? Check out these 5 free and affordable ChatGPT alternatives students can easily access for step-by-step explanations.

Students are increasingly relying on online homework help, not only to stay ahead of looming deadlines, but also to develop and hone their research skills using digital tools. Learning how to use online resources and prompt AI tools effectively and efficiently gives students an advantage in the workforce.

Today, AI-powered chatbot solutions are making life easier for students by streamlining the process of finding answers and information quickly and easily — allowing them to understand complex topics for any course, even when they can’t make it to the library or office hours. 

Since its release to the public in late 2022, ChatGPT has quickly become one such AI solution, offering instant help with anything from outlining research papers to calculations to essay prompts.

But sometimes you need to dive deeper into the material, and there are many facets to studying beyond just knowing the answer: paraphrasing in your own words, citing sources, the list goes on.

Keeping student budgets in mind, we’ll explore five AI homework help alternatives to ChatGPT that can provide expert help in minutes.

Best AI Homework Helper: Course Hero

How does Course Hero work with AI?

Course Hero provides helpful AI-powered study help for individual documents that students upload. 

Students simply add their school and course name when they upload a study document, and then Course Hero’s AI cross-references the course and school name to find the most relevant resources for each question. This allows students to quickly and easily access the most helpful and pertinent resources to help them study.

From study guides and textbook solutions to lecture notes and labs, Course Hero’s library offers everything a student would need for their courses. With over 100 million digital course materials spanning various topics and academic levels, it provides a one-stop-shop for any study document a student might be looking for. Its powerful AI technology also lets students easily filter through courses across thousands of schools, so they can also see how other instructors are teaching the material they’re studying.

Overall, Course Hero’s AI Homework Help tool helps students be more organized and efficient when studying for their courses. And if you’re feeling extra stuck, or just need someone to help verify a solution for you, Course Hero has 24/7 subject matter experts you can rely on for step-by-step explanations in about 30 minutes.

Is Course Hero legit?

Yes, Course Hero is a trusted and legitimate online learning platform used by more than 20 million students across all disciplines. With their user-friendly interface, course-specific study content, verified expert tutors, and advanced AI question-answering tools, Course Hero aims to provide personalized support using resources uploaded by students and educators across every school in every subject. 

One of the main reasons students use Course Hero is that it makes studying more efficient and saves dozens of hours scrolling online to find thorough solutions. Course Hero’s AI Homework Help simplifies the process of finding relevant resources by letting students simply upload a document and instantly access course-specific materials that help answer their questions.

Course Hero’s AI-powered homework help is the perfect ally for college students who are looking to maximize their study time and stay ahead of deadlines.

Is Course Hero worth it?

Course Hero’s paid subscription unlocks a treasure trove of study materials, including lecture notes, practice problems, study guides, flashcards, and more. Students can dive into a vast database of educational content tailored to the exact courses at their school. Plus, you get 24/7 on-demand support from subject matter experts in every discipline—facilitating a more seamless study experience and improved grades.

Course Hero is fast becoming the go-to resource for millions of students and even educators! More than 150,000 teachers use Course Hero’s library to build their courses or find inspiration for structuring their curriculum.

Most recently, Course Hero’s AI Homework Help tool enables students to upload their homework and get explanations inserted directly into their document. You’ll also be shown the most relevant resources from other uploaders in the community, and in many cases, you’ll find resources that have been shared from students at your school who have taken the same exact course—you really can’t get more relevant than that!

You can try Course Hero’s AI Homework Help free on your first document, but you’ll need to upgrade to a Premier account beyond that. If you want to save time and avoid jumping from tab to tab in your browser, you might want to consider upgrading. As one economics major said, “My favorite part is how [Course Hero’s AI Homework Help] links my questions to similar questions. It helps me understand the question and answer better, and also helps me practice.”

Best AI Writing Tool: QuillBot

How does QuillBot work?

QuillBot stands out as one of the best AI writing tools available, offering students a powerful platform to enhance their writing skills. With its advanced paraphrasing capabilities, QuillBot assists students in producing high-quality written work while encouraging critical thinking and original thought. This innovative tool serves as a valuable resource for students seeking to improve their writing efficiency and effectiveness.

At the core of QuillBot’s functionality is its ability to generate paraphrases of existing text. By using advanced algorithms, QuillBot can rephrase sentences and paragraphs while maintaining the original meaning. 

QuillBot is especially beneficial for those who struggle with understanding an academic article or text and need help rephrasing its key points. As a result, students can write more precisely and express their ideas more effectively—helping them become better writers while improving their vocabulary.

By going through the editing process of analyzing and restructuring your text with QuillBot’s AI writer, you actually gain a deeper understanding of your own ideas and the impact of different writing choices.

So if you’re ever feeling like your arguments aren’t coming together, don’t hesitate to use QuillBot’s summarizer and paraphrasing tools as they will help you generate smoother transitions between points and create a logical flow of your ideas—helping you improve your communication style and getting your point across more effectively.

Is QuillBot free?

QuillBot offers both a free and paid Premium version. QuillBot’s free version is a great place to start if you’re looking for a basic AI writing assistant. Whether it’s improving grammar, finding the perfect words for an expression, or paraphrasing an idea in your own words, QuillBot’s free version packs a punch with its basic synonym suggestions and grammar assistance. 

All in all, QuillBot’s free version allows students access to invaluable writing tools—assisting them in improving their assignments with real-time guidance and support.

Here’s everything you get with a free QuillBot account:

  • Paraphrasing: Ability to rephrase and reword sentences while maintaining the original meaning.
  • Basic Synonym Suggestions: Offers synonym suggestions to help diversify and enhance vocabulary usage.
  • Grammar Checking: Assists in identifying grammatical errors and providing suggestions for improvement.
  • Word Flipper: Allows users to flip words within a sentence to explore alternative sentence structures.
  • Sentence Rewriting: Provides basic sentence rewriting suggestions to enhance clarity and coherence.
  • Browser Extension: Offers a browser extension that integrates QuillBot functionality into various online platforms.
  • Limited Access to Writing Modes: Provides access to the general writing mode for standard writing needs.

With QuillBot’s Premium version, you get all the free version features, plus:

  • Advanced Writing Modes: Offers formal, creative, and casual writing modes for tailored writing styles.
  • Plagiarism Checker: Scans up to 20 pages per month to ensure plagiarism-free work. One page is equal to 250 words, and you can purchase extra pages if needed. QuillBot’s plagiarism checker can process more than 100 languages, so you can be absolutely confident of avoiding plagiarism.
  • Expanded Synonym Database: Provides a wider range of synonyms and alternative word choices.
  • Advanced Sentence Structure Suggestions: Offers more sophisticated suggestions for sentence rephrasing and restructuring.
  • Readability Analysis: Provides insights and suggestions for improving the readability of the text.
  • Enhanced Grammar Checking: Offers more comprehensive grammar checking capabilities with detailed suggestions.
  • Increased Word Limit: Allows processing of longer texts and documents.
  • Faster Processing Speed: Provides quicker response times for generating suggestions and results.

Is using QuillBot cheating?

QuillBot is not considered cheating because it has all the tools a student needs to maintain academic integrity, including a plagiarism checker and citation generator.

QuillBot’s plagiarism checker is one of the most user-friendly tools we’ve seen and is incredibly helpful for protecting students from unintentional plagiarism.

This feature allows students to upload or copy/paste their work, which is then compared against a vast database of books, journals, articles, and more. If any similarities are found between the submitted text and sources in the database, QuillBot’s reports will alert them on these potential issues. Within a few seconds, QuillBot’s plagiarism checker creates a detailed report flagging each instance where the student may have unknowingly plagiarized source material and provide citations for the used sources so you can give due credit where it’s due. 

In other words, QuillBot helps students stay clear of any violation of academic integrity—saving them from embarrassment and potential punishments.

Best Online Math Solver: Symbolab

How does Symbolab work?

Symbolab is much more than just a calculator—it provides step-by-step solutions for some of the most complex math problems. The platform covers a wide range of disciplines, such as algebra, calculus, trigonometry, geometry, statistics and more, making it a convenient AI homework tool for students of all levels.

Instead of simply giving a final answer, Symbolab takes it a step further by helping you understand how the problem was solved. Whether it’s understanding number theory or combinatorics (yep, that’s a real word) to solving an equation using logarithms, Symbolab shows you exactly every step taken to reach the solution.

This allows students to gain invaluable insight into the underlying concepts behind each problem as well as recognize any errors they might have made in solving them. With Symbolab’s comprehensive coverage of mathematics topics, students no longer have to worry about feeling overwhelmed by their coursework—they can get accurate guidance with every kind of math problem, from basic arithmetic up to advanced levels.

Is Symbolab free?

Symbolab does offer a free version with limited features, including a digital notebook to save your math problems and the ability to solve practice problems. 

When users upgrade to a Symbolab Pro Account, they gain access to exclusive features, including practice problems with solutions and explanations, explanatory videos on complex topics, advanced graphing capabilities that can be used for visualizations of problems, additional topic-specific tools like the Fourier Series Calculator or Laplace Transform Calculator as well as support from our live math experts who can answer questions quickly and accurately. 

In addition, premium users also get access to online exams with unlimited attempts on each subject as well as personalized insights that allow them to track their progress over time. 

For college students taking multiple math classes, upgrading to a Symbolab Pro account is definitely worth it.

Best Literature Study Guides: LitCharts

LitCharts is an online platform devoted to providing detailed literary analysis, summaries, and study guides for a wide range of novels, plays, poems, and more. To date, more than 50 million students and teachers use LitCharts as a study aid.

Readers can further their understanding of their favorite texts—or assigned texts that maybe aren’t so fun to read—in much greater detail thanks to the annotated summaries and interactive reference guides available. 

In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of various stories’ characters, themes and overall plot structure, LitCharts also goes into great detail on related symbols, motifs and historical contexts.

With all these free features—plus the availability of even more content in their premium membership upgrade—LitChart provides students with all the tools they need to gain a deeper understanding of literature no matter what level they are studying at.

By using charts, graphs, and timelines, readers are able to observe texts in a more intuitive manner—making it easy for visual learners to understand and analyze what they read.

The interactive tools available on LitCharts allow readers to gain a greater understanding of topics such as symbols, themes, motifs and other elements within any work they may be studying. Additionally, students can also take full advantage of the online platform’s ability-to-zoom feature; allowing them to easily access details on specific characters or events as needed while avoiding distraction from unrelated information. 

All of these various visual components empower readers with an easier route towards literacy. Abstract concepts become more tangible with LitChart’s extensive library of literature study guides and visual aids.

Best Citation Generator: Scribbr

Scribbr is a trusted and widely used free citation generator within the academic community. It’s one of the leading citation generators and also offers an extensive library of free resources for students, researchers, and academics alike—allowing users to conveniently cite sources within their essays or assignments. 

In addition to various style guides for different formats such as MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, Scribbr also provides comprehensive tutorials on grammar rules as well as writing tips in areas like creative writing or scientific texts. 

This platform allows writers to be confident that adequate credit is given by providing accurate bibliographic information on sources they used in their essay, always ensuring that published papers are plagiarism-free and properly cited.

With these five free ChatGPT alternatives, you have a variety of tools designed for specialized homework help—making it easier than ever to find assistance with any subject easily and quickly, while ensuring academic integrity.

What Is Course Hero?

Course Hero is an online learning platform where you can access course-specific study resources contributed by a community of students and educators.

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