Ask the Herald
Tell the Herald what you are trying to get done, in your own words. The Herald searches the Solos Gems database and convenes the Council of Oracles: a Wizard, a Bard, and a Rogue, each a different free AI model, who argue it out and vote for the tools best suited to your quest.
The verdict
How the Herald chooses
The Herald does not guess from thin air. Every answer comes from the same database that powers the Solos Gems rankings, a database of 245 AI tools, each with a category, its pricing, a score out of ten, and a plain-English summary written by hand.
Step one: the scroll search
Your words are matched against every tool's name, category, and write-up. Everyday words are translated into the database's language, so "Zoom calls" finds meeting transcription tools and "resume" finds career tools. Rare, specific words count for more than common ones. The closest matches, up to eighteen, make the shortlist. Tick "Free plans only" and paid-only tools never make it that far.
Step two: the Council of Oracles votes
Your quest and the shortlist go to three different free, open AI models at once, all running on Cloudflare Workers AI. Each plays a character: the Wizard (Meta's Llama) is a pompous scholar, the Bard (Mistral) loves a pun, and the Rogue (Alibaba's Qwen) distrusts anything that costs gold. Each one gives you a line in the Solos Gems house voice and votes for up to three tools, with a reason.
The Herald then counts the votes: a first choice is worth three points, a second two, a third one. The tool with the most points is the Council's choice. Because the oracles can only vote for tools on the shortlist, none of them can invent a tool that does not exist. If an oracle is busy it misses the meeting, and if the whole Council is out, the Herald answers with the top matches from the scroll search, so you always get an answer.
Step three: the Herald has the last word
Once the votes are in, the Herald delivers a one-line verdict on the Council's choice. The Herald is a small open model (Meta's Llama 3.2 3B) that we trained ourselves on Solos Gems writing: every comic caption in the database, the DeathStack epitaphs, scenes from The Road to Solos Gems, and a few hundred original jokes comparing the real world to a fantasy realm. That training is why the Herald sounds like the rest of the site instead of a generic chatbot in a wizard hat.
Why three models instead of one?
Different AI models have different instincts. When all three agree, you can be fairly confident in the pick. When they split, you get several good options and the reasons behind each one, which is often more useful than a single answer.
Reading the results
- Rank and score: where the tool sits in the whole database, and its score out of ten.
- Tested or Scouted: Tested tools were used hands-on. Scouted tools are ranked from research.
- Free plan or Paid only: whether you can keep using it for free, not just trial it.
Privacy
Your question is sent to the Solos Gems server to find matches and is not stored with anything that identifies you. Do not type personal details into your quest. See the privacy policy.
Want to browse instead? The full AI tools database lists every tool by category, or test what you know in The Herald's Riddle.