# BigModel vs Side Reader BigModel records 5,700,686 monthly visits with -17% month-over-month growth and Freemium pricing. Side Reader records 355 monthly visits with -36.5% growth and Freemium pricing. | Metric | [BigModel](https://openaitools.app/tool/bigmodel) | [Side Reader](https://openaitools.app/tool/side-reader) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Website URL | https://bigmodel.cn | https://www.side-reader.com | | Categories | Large Language Models (LLMs), AI API, AI Models, AI Agent | AI PDF, AI Reader, AI Chatbot, AI PDF Summarizer | | Pricing Model | Freemium | Freemium | | Monthly Visits | 5,700,686 | 355 | | MoM Growth Rate | -17% | -36.5% | | Primary Market | China | Vietnam | | Direct Visits | 4,230,503 | 149 | | Review Score | 4.6 | 2.4 | | Saved Count | 0 | 0 | | Supported Platforms | Website | Website | ## BigModel BigModel is Zhipu AI's developer-facing platform, offering API access to the company's GLM series of large language models and a broad set of multimodal capabilities. Instead of juggling separate vendors, teams can call text generation, vision-language understanding, OCR, speech recognition, speech synthesis, image generation, and video generation endpoints from one account and one set of credentials. Beyond raw model access, the platform targets application builders. It includes an agent framework, MCP service support, knowledge-base tooling for retrieval-augmented generation, model fine-tuning workflows, and a model playground for quick testing in the browser. There are also adjacent offerings such as an AI coding assistant and visual/low-code building experiences aimed at teams that want to ship without heavy ML engineering. For organizations with stricter requirements, BigModel supports private instance deployment and on-premise options, alongside token-based pay-as-you-go and enterprise contracts. This makes it a fit for both individual developers prototyping on a budget and enterprises that need data to stay inside their own infrastructure. **Pricing & Plans:** BigModel follows a freemium, token-based model: new users typically receive free trial credits, then pay-as-you-go for API usage by tokens consumed. Larger volumes, private instance deployment, and on-premise installations are arranged through contact-for-pricing enterprise agreements. Always confirm current rates on the official pricing page. - **GLM text and multimodal APIs:** Unified access to GLM large language models plus vision, OCR, speech, image, and video endpoints through one account. - **Agent and MCP support:** Build tool-using agents and expose or consume MCP services to connect models to external systems. - **Knowledge base and RAG tooling:** Create managed knowledge bases and retrieval pipelines so models can answer with your own documents. - **Fine-tuning and playground:** Tune models on your data and prototype prompts interactively in the browser before shipping. - **Private and on-premise deployment:** Run models in a private instance or on your own hardware for data-residency and compliance needs. **Strengths:** Broad model coverage, from LLMs to vision, speech, and video, under one platform; Officially backs the GLM family, so model documentation and updates are first-party; Supports private and on-premise deployment for strict data requirements; Includes agent, knowledge-base, and fine-tuning tooling beyond raw API access **Limitations:** Pricing and documentation are primarily Chinese-first, which can slow English-only teams; Some enterprise capabilities require sales contact rather than transparent self-serve pricing; Token costs can grow quickly for high-volume multimodal workloads [Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/bigmodel.md) ## Side Reader Side Reader exists to remove the friction of working with documents and AI chatbots at the same time. Normally you either paste chunks of a PDF into a chat window or juggle two tabs and lose your place. Side Reader is a Chrome extension that renders the PDF in the sidebar of ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek, so the document and the conversation sit side by side. Once a PDF is open you use built-in action buttons to summarize, translate or explain content, and you can customize those button prompts so the AI answers in your preferred format. For content that cannot be selected — charts, infographics, scanned images — a screenshot question lets you ask about a region of the page directly. The reader itself supports zoom, page navigation and width adjustment, so it behaves like a normal PDF viewer rather than a stripped-down preview. Privacy is handled simply: PDFs are stored locally in your browser and Side Reader does not keep your files. Because the AI work happens inside the ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek session you are already using, Side Reader adds document handling rather than a separate subscription to yet another model. **Pricing & Plans:** Freemium. The core Chrome extension is available to install, with a paid upgrade for extended usage; check the extension listing for current limits. - **Read PDFs beside the chat:** PDFs render directly in the sidebar next to the chat, so your document and the AI conversation are visible at the same time. - **Summarize, translate and explain:** Summarize a whole document, translate it, or have passages explained in simpler terms using the AI you are already signed into. - **Custom action button prompts:** Built-in buttons cover the common actions, and you can edit their prompts to make the AI respond in the format and tone you need. - **Screenshot questions for non-selectable content:** Ask about charts, scans or regions that cannot be selected by taking a screenshot question instead. - **Local storage and a proper reader:** Files stay local in your browser and are not stored by Side Reader, and PDFs keep zoom, page navigation and width controls. **Strengths:** Keeps the PDF and the AI conversation visible in the same window; Works with ChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek rather than locking you into one model; Local-only file storage — documents are not kept on Side Reader servers; Customizable action prompts for repeatable workflows **Limitations:** Requires an active ChatGPT, Claude or DeepSeek session to do the AI work; Chrome only — no Firefox, Safari or Edge-specific edition; Very new/small product, so the feature set is still evolving [Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/side-reader.md) ## Frequently Asked Questions ### How do BigModel and Side Reader compare in monthly traffic? BigModel has 5,700,686 monthly visits, while Side Reader has 355. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality. ### How do their growth rates compare? BigModel has a month-over-month growth rate of -17%; Side Reader has -36.5%. ### How does pricing compare? BigModel: Freemium. BigModel follows a freemium, token-based model: new users typically receive free trial credits, then pay-as-you-go for API usage by tokens consumed. Larger volumes, private instance deployment, and on-premise installations are arranged through contact-for-pricing enterprise agreements. Always confirm current rates on the official pricing page. Side Reader: Freemium. Freemium. The core Chrome extension is available to install, with a paid upgrade for extended usage; check the extension listing for current limits. ## Alternatives | # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | 1 | [DeepSeek](https://openaitools.app/tool/deepseek) | 372,761,591 | +4.3% | Freemium | Delivers exceptional open-weight reasoning performance at very low cost, but lacks BigModel's broad enterprise multi-modal agent building suite. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/deepseek.md) | | 2 | [OpenAI Platform](https://openaitools.app/tool/openai) | 234,678,639 | -9.6% | Paid | Provides industry-leading frontier intelligence and developer ecosystems, but lacks BigModel's specialized GLM architecture and native Chinese language optimizations. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/openai.md) | | 3 | [Google AI Studio](https://openaitools.app/tool/google-ai-studio) | 112,620,020 | +2% | Freemium | Offers massive context windows and robust multimodal Gemini APIs, but differs in model architecture and regional enterprise tooling. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/google-ai-studio.md) | | 4 | [OpenRouter](https://openaitools.app/tool/openrouter-ai) | 19,941,437 | -6.2% | Paid | Aggregates hundreds of global models under one API endpoint, whereas BigModel provides direct native infrastructure for Zhipu's GLM models. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/openrouter-ai.md) | | 5 | [SciSpace](https://openaitools.app/tool/scispace) | 4,464,111 | +8.6% | Freemium | AI research platform for reading, understanding and writing scientific papers | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/scispace.md) | | 6 | [fal.ai](https://openaitools.app/tool/fal-ai) | 3,093,684 | -3.7% | Paid, pay-as-you-go usage-based pricing | One API for 1,500+ production-ready generative media models | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/fal-ai.md) | | 7 | [PDFgear](https://openaitools.app/tool/pdfgear) | 2,845,280 | -3.4% | Free | A free, AI-powered PDF editor for every device | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/pdfgear.md) | | 8 | [Sider](https://openaitools.app/tool/sider) | 2,644,740 | -10.6% | Freemium | AI sidebar and browser agent for reading, writing and research | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/sider.md) | | 9 | [Immersive Translate](https://openaitools.app/tool/immersive-translate) | 2,392,414 | -9.4% | Freemium, Free Trial | Bilingual AI translation for websites, documents, video and images | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/immersive-translate.md) | | 10 | [LightPDF](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com) | 1,742,568 | -15.3% | Freemium | Free AI-powered PDF editor, converter and reader for every device | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com.md) | --- Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/bigmodel-vs-side-reader More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)