What this report measures
This report ranks the most-compared software and consumer products on US Google Search during Q1 2026 (Jan 1 – Mar 31, 2026). “Most-compared” means ranked by observed search-engine query volume for head-to-head comparison phrases of the form “X vs Y” — for example, “chatgpt vs claude” or “1password vs bitwarden”.
The goal is to surface, with public-data transparency, which buyer-decision battles people actually researched on Google during the quarter — not which tools we like, which raised money, or which brands trended on social.
Top 10 battles by Q1 2026 volume
Data source
Keyword search-volume figures come from the DataForSEO Labs API (endpoint /dataforseo_labs/google/bulk_keyword_difficulty/live), which derives volume estimates from Google Ads’ Keyword Planner data plus DataForSEO’s own clickstream and SERP scraping. We use:
location_code: 2840(United States) — every figure in this report, including the headline figure, is US Google Search. We do not publish a worldwide aggregate.language_code: "en"throughout.- Exact-match keyword volumes only (no broad/phrase variants). This produces conservative numbers — the true comparison-search universe is larger because of synonyms (“comparison,” “better,” “difference between”) that we exclude here for citation cleanliness.
Month-by-month trend curves used for chart generation come from Google Trends via DataForSEO’s /keywords_data/google_trends/explore/live endpoint, which proxies the same Google Trends Explorer surface published at trends.google.com.
Ranking methodology
For the Top 50 list:
- We define a candidate pool of 50 head-to-head pairs across 10 product categories — the universe is published as a sibling artifact on this report.
- For each pair we sum monthly search volume for Jan + Feb + Mar 2026.
- The Top 50 is ranked by that sum, descending. Ties are broken by absolute QoQ delta (largest mover wins the higher slot).
- Categories are not balanced — if a category over-represents the Top 50 by raw volume, that’s the finding, not a flaw to correct for.
For QoQ percentages: Q1 2026 sum vs Q4 2025 sum (Oct + Nov + Dec). For YoY percentages: Q1 2026 sum vs Q1 2025 sum.
Fastest-rising battles
The quarter’s growth is Claude-centric. claude code vs cursor (+1,388% YoY) was the single biggest battle, and claude vs gemini (+1,436% YoY) and chatgpt vs claude (+403% YoY) round out the genuine breakouts.
Biggest decliners
Full ranked slate
↓ Download CSVAll figures are US Google Search volume (exact-match), Q1 2026 vs Q4 2025 (QoQ) and Q1 2025 (YoY). The same data is available as a downloadable CSV.
| # | Battle | Q1 2026 | Q4 2025 | Q1 2025 | QoQ | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | claude code vs cursor | 39,000 | 15,200 | 2,620 | +156.6% | +1388.5% |
| 2 | chatgpt vs claude | 38,700 | 8,900 | 7,700 | +334.8% | +402.6% |
| 3 | chatgpt vs gemini | 30,100 | 32,800 | 13,200 | -8.2% | +128.0% |
| 4 | claude vs gemini | 23,800 | 5,300 | 1,550 | +349.1% | +1435.5% |
| 5 | iphone vs samsung | 10,100 | 10,800 | 12,400 | -6.5% | -18.5% |
| 6 | chrome vs firefox | 8,700 | 9,400 | 9,400 | -7.4% | -7.4% |
| 7 | chatgpt vs copilot | 8,200 | 10,100 | 7,700 | -18.8% | +6.5% |
| 8 | chrome vs safari | 8,200 | 8,200 | 22,800 | 0.0% | -64.0% |
| 9 | chrome vs edge | 7,700 | 7,200 | 10,200 | +6.9% | -24.5% |
| 10 | notion vs obsidian | 7,700 | 5,400 | 6,700 | +42.6% | +14.9% |
| 11 | slack vs teams | 6,200 | 5,100 | 7,200 | +21.6% | -13.9% |
| 12 | claude vs perplexity | 5,680 | 1,900 | 1,260 | +198.9% | +350.8% |
| 13 | iphone 15 vs iphone 16 | 4,400 | 4,800 | 10,100 | -8.3% | -56.4% |
| 14 | 1password vs bitwarden | 4,200 | 3,000 | 3,600 | +40.0% | +16.7% |
| 15 | chatgpt vs perplexity | 3,900 | 5,600 | 1,000 | -30.4% | +290.0% |
| 16 | cursor vs windsurf | 3,900 | 4,500 | 9,900 | -13.3% | -60.6% |
| 17 | cursor vs copilot | 3,600 | 4,800 | 12,700 | -25.0% | -71.7% |
| 18 | slack vs discord | 3,360 | 1,900 | 3,000 | +76.8% | +12.0% |
| 19 | brave vs chrome | 3,000 | 2,640 | 3,180 | +13.6% | -5.7% |
| 20 | pixel vs iphone | 2,760 | 4,500 | 3,900 | -38.7% | -29.2% |
| 21 | firefox vs safari | 2,320 | 2,320 | 3,300 | 0.0% | -29.7% |
| 22 | zoom vs google meet | 2,320 | 1,660 | 2,640 | +39.8% | -12.1% |
| 23 | 1password vs lastpass | 2,160 | 2,190 | 2,880 | -1.4% | -25.0% |
| 24 | onedrive vs google drive | 2,160 | 2,190 | 3,060 | -1.4% | -29.4% |
| 25 | proton pass vs bitwarden | 2,160 | 2,030 | 1,770 | +6.4% | +22.0% |
| 26 | icloud vs google drive | 1,900 | 2,030 | 2,760 | -6.4% | -31.2% |
| 27 | nordpass vs 1password | 1,900 | 2,160 | 2,320 | -12.0% | -18.1% |
| 28 | google drive vs dropbox | 1,770 | 1,770 | 2,640 | 0.0% | -33.0% |
| 29 | zoom vs teams | 1,770 | 1,570 | 2,640 | +12.7% | -33.0% |
| 30 | bitwarden vs lastpass | 1,550 | 1,550 | 2,310 | 0.0% | -32.9% |
| 31 | dropbox vs onedrive | 1,260 | 1,260 | 1,900 | 0.0% | -33.7% |
| 32 | gemini vs perplexity | 1,170 | 1,040 | 510 | +12.5% | +129.4% |
| 33 | dashlane vs 1password | 1,170 | 1,700 | 1,550 | -31.2% | -24.5% |
| 34 | notion vs evernote | 1,170 | 1,100 | 1,950 | +6.4% | -40.0% |
| 35 | airpods vs galaxy buds | 550 | 630 | 550 | -12.7% | 0.0% |
| 36 | perplexity vs google | 490 | 640 | 1,120 | -23.4% | -56.2% |
| 37 | bear vs obsidian | 450 | 450 | 640 | 0.0% | -29.7% |
| 38 | cursor vs cline | 420 | 640 | 2,110 | -34.4% | -80.1% |
| 39 | midjourney vs stable diffusion | 370 | 450 | 1,460 | -17.8% | -74.7% |
| 40 | arc vs chrome | 310 | 370 | 780 | -16.2% | -60.3% |
| 41 | apple notes vs notion | 160 | 140 | 190 | +14.3% | -15.8% |
| 42 | bard vs chatgpt | 140 | 110 | 560 | +27.3% | -75.0% |
| 43 | midjourney vs dall-e | 110 | 120 | 750 | -8.3% | -85.3% |
| 44 | ideogram vs midjourney | 80 | 150 | 490 | -46.7% | -83.7% |
| 45 | dall-e vs stable diffusion | 70 | 80 | 230 | -12.5% | -69.6% |
| 46 | midjourney vs flux | 70 | 50 | 420 | +40.0% | -83.3% |
| 47 | obsidian vs roam | 60 | 40 | 150 | +50.0% | -60.0% |
| 48 | chatgpt search vs perplexity | 30 | 30 | 190 | 0.0% | -84.2% |
| 49 | copilot vs codeium | 30 | 30 | 90 | 0.0% | -66.7% |
| 50 | copilot vs tabnine | 30 | 40 | 140 | -25.0% | -78.6% |
| 51 | perplexity vs you.com | 30 | 30 | 60 | 0.0% | -50.0% |
What this report does NOT measure
For honesty in citation:
- Not actual product usage — we measure search behavior, which is upstream of usage. A tool can be heavily compared and never adopted (or vice versa).
- Not revenue, market share, or user counts — those require company disclosures we don’t have.
- Not A Versus B’s own page traffic — we don’t use our internal analytics to rank external comparison demand. Our own traffic numbers are excluded from this dataset.
- Not predictive — past-quarter comparison volume doesn’t forecast adoption or market outcomes.
- Not exhaustive of all comparison searches — we measure exact-match “X vs Y” only. Synonym variants (“X versus Y,” “X or Y,” “difference between X and Y”) are excluded for measurement cleanliness.
Confidence and limitations
- Volume estimates carry ±15–25% margin (DataForSEO’s documented accuracy band on volumes < 100k/month). Headline figures are rounded to two significant figures to avoid implying false precision.
- DataForSEO updates monthly volumes with a 1–3 month lag. Q1 2026 data is fully settled as of the publication date below; April 2026 onward is partial and will not appear in this report.
- US-only geographic scope. All figures are US Google Search (
location_code: 2840). Comparison demand outside the US, and in non-English markets (e.g. Chinese-market AI tools), is out of scope and underrepresented here. - “Bard” → “Gemini” rebrand: Google rebranded Bard to Gemini in early 2024. Residual “bard vs chatgpt” search volume reflects users whose mental model still uses the legacy name; we report it as a legacy term, not a current product.
Reproducibility
We publish the per-pair Q1 volume CSV and the chart source data as downloadable artifacts on this page. Anyone with a DataForSEO subscription (or comparable tool — Ahrefs, SEMrush) can reproduce the volume reads with the keywords and date range above. We invite corrections and will post correction notes inline.
Citations and corrections
- Author: A Versus B data team. Lead analyst: Daniel Rozin (founder).
- Last updated: June 12, 2026.
- Methodology version: 1.1 (US-only scope reconciled with press release).
- Corrections: contact pr@aversusb.net. Material corrections trigger a new methodology version + dated changelog entry on this page.
Versioning
This is the inaugural quarterly report. Future quarters will be published at /q2-2026-ai-battles, /q3-2026-ai-battles, etc., each with its own methodology snapshot. If the methodology changes between quarters, we will say so and explain why.