Is popularity enough when choosing an AI tool?
The most-used product and the most effective product for your workflow may be different.
Popularity can be useful: it may signal a large user base, documentation and ecosystem. But it is not enough by itself.
For research, current web access and citations may matter; for coding, repository context and reviewability; for image generation, reference consistency and usage rights; for daily work, price, limits and speed.
Write down the task first, then run the same three real examples through candidate tools. The useful question is not “best overall,” but “which tool gives the most reliable result with the least friction for this job?”