Brave Leo
Shares rank 22 of 26 AI assistants by recommenders
Free AI assistant built into Brave, praised for privacy, local endpoint support and research use. Critics say it runs a weak, cheap model.
Free AI assistant built into Brave, praised for privacy, local endpoint support and research use. Critics say it runs a weak, cheap model.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Configurable, private AI assistant
“Brave's "Leo" AI is configurable enough to specify local endpoints for processing”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Chrome removes claim of On-device Al not sending data to Google Servers” “free and private AI assistant Leo”
Comment from 16 Aug 2026 in “Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin” Useful for historical research
“geared specifically for historical research and led by historians”
Comment from 5 Dec 2025 in “I have been writing a niche history blog for 15 years” “I use Leo way more than I thought I would for this exact reason.”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “I think nobody wants AI in Firefox, Mozilla”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Weak, low-quality underlying model
“Leo is not even the LLM, its just a browser extension typically running a very weak/cheap model”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse” “last i checked Brave's Leo was slop”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “When did Google get so weird?”
Other AI assistants people recommend
The four most recommended other AI assistants, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | 5,175 | 5,005 | 51% | 13 | 6 mo326 owners | — |
| Google Gemini | 2,195 | 2,236 | 50% | 13 | 6 mo98 owners | — |
| ChatGPT | 2,186 | 2,885 | 43% | 13 | 1 yr164 owners | — |
| Grok | 727 | 1,249 | 37% | 13 | 1 mo19 owners | — |
| Brave LeoThis page | 7 | 2 | 78% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“which is IMO even better implemented than Firefox's”
“last i checked Brave's Leo was slop”
“free and private AI assistant Leo”
“Leo is not even the LLM, its just a browser extension typically running a very weak/cheap model”
“I tried to qualify by version, but when I do that I lose out on a lot of correct information”
“Brave's "Leo" AI is configurable enough to specify local endpoints for processing”
“geared specifically for historical research and led by historians”
“I use Leo way more than I thought I would for this exact reason.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.