Doubao 豆包 (ByteDance) vs Tencent Yuanbao 腾讯元宝 vs Quark AI 夸克AI vs Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM)
A side-by-side look at scores, pricing and features — with RECATOOLS' ASEAN-aware verdict for each.
Doubao 豆包 (ByteDance)
ByteDance's China-first AI assistant, free for daily use with paid pow...
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Tencent Yuanbao 腾讯元宝
Tencent's free consumer AI assistant, tied into WeChat
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Quark AI 夸克AI
Alibaba's Qwen-powered search, browser and cloud-drive app for China
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Zhipu Qingyan 智谱清言 (ChatGLM)
Zhipu's GLM-powered assistant, plus a GLM coding subscription
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| RECATOOLS Score | 6.4 / 10 | 6.3 / 10 | 5 / 10 | 7.7 / 10 |
| Capability | ||||
| Value for money | ||||
| Ease of use | ||||
| ASEAN readiness | ||||
| API quality | ||||
| Pricing | Freemium | Free | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | Free consumer app: chat, search, writing, image generation and voice and video calls; expert and Office Task modes carry smaller quotas than paid tiers | Free on web, mobile and inside WeChat; Tencent publishes no consumer paid plan or usage limits | AI search, the 千问 assistant, AI browser, scanner and PDF tools are free to use with a Quark account | Qingyan web/app chat is free with sign-in; memberships and points packs are optional. Z.ai API: GLM-4.7-Flash, GLM-4.5-Flash and GLM-4.6V-Flash are free |
| Paid from | ¥68/month (专业版 Standard, or ¥688/year); API from $0.075 per M input tokens on BytePlus | — | ¥25/month 夸克网盘 SVIP on auto-renewal (App Store), ¥300/year list | Coding Plan from $18/mo; Qingyan membership ¥79/mo (China App Store) |
| Has API | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Free to use | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Users | Surpassed 100 million daily active users by late 2025 | ~57 million MAU (March 2026), 4th in China behind Doubao, Qianwen, and DeepSeek | ~150 million monthly active users (March 2025) — China's most-used AI application. | — |
| Founded | 2023 | 2024 | 2016 | 2019 |
| Maker | ByteDance | Tencent Holdings | Alibaba Group | Z.AI Co., Ltd. (北京智谱华章科技股份有限公司) |
| Verdict | Doubao is the default AI assistant for Chinese-language users: QuestMobile puts it far ahead of Qwen and DeepSeek, everyday features are free, and the June 2026 Professional tiers (¥68 to ¥500 a month) add an agent mode... |
Yuanbao's strength is distribution: it sits next to WeChat, reads Official Account articles and summarises chat histories, and since July 2026 runs on Tencent's own Hy3 model with a free agent that produces slides, docum... |
Quark is a capable, mostly free Qwen-powered everything-app for Chinese students and office workers: AI search, a desktop AI browser that summarises and compares tabs, PPT and PDF tools, a scanner and a large cloud drive... |
Qingyan is a capable, free Chinese AI assistant backed by Zhipu's strong GLM models, and the GLM Coding Plan offers an affordable alternative model for coding agents, with off-peak discounts in Singapore time. Prices hav... |
| Full review → | Full review → | Full review → | Full review → |
Comparisons cover up to 4 tools. Scores are RECATOOLS editorial assessments; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.