AI Connectors vs Plugins Explained

In July, ChatGPT replaced its App Directory with a Plugin Directory. Claude already had a menu called Plugins, and it does a different job. Grok Bot, the agent product from SpaceXAI, keeps its add-ons in a Marketplace. Three companies are selling one idea under at least five names.

We checked every fact below against each company’s own help pages on September 23, 2026, and the directory counts come from our own tally that day.

What does a connector do?

Picture your AI assistant as a clever person in a room with no phone. It can write and reason, but it can’t see your calendar or your inbox. A connector is a phone line to one app. Once it’s connected, the assistant can look things up in that app and, with your say-so, do things there.

Ask “what did my landlord say about the lease?” with Gmail connected, and the AI reads your inbox and tells you. Ask the same question without it, and all it can do is guess.

Most of these links run on an open standard called MCP, short for Model Context Protocol. You don’t need to understand it to use one. If you’re curious, our MCP explainer goes further, and the official MCP site has the technical detail.

Every connection signs in with your own account. The AI sees what your login can see and nothing more.

One idea, five names

Here is each company’s word and what it means.

App	What you see on screen	What it is	Who gets it
Claude	Connectors	A link to one app, such as Gmail, Canva or Strava	Every plan, Free included
Claude	Plugins	A kit that packages skills (saved instructions) with the connectors they need, for one kind of work	Paid plans only
ChatGPT	Plugins (some accounts still say Apps)	A link to one or more apps, sometimes with skills included	The directory is on every plan; whether you can use a given plugin depends on your plan and country
Grok	Connectors	A link to one app, from a short built-in list plus a larger catalog	Every Grok user, free included
Grok Bot	Marketplace	Two shelves: ready-made bots, and a catalog of plugins	Paid Cursor plans, SuperGrok or X Premium+, with a free trial

So in everyday use, a Claude connector, a ChatGPT plugin and a Grok connector do the same job. Claude’s plugins are bigger bundles.

Claude: connectors are links, plugins are kits

When we counted on September 23, Claude’s connector directory listed 830 connectors. Our May inventory found about 414, so the list has roughly doubled in four months.

Of those, 130 are interactive. Instead of replying in text, they show a small working screen inside the chat. AccuWeather shows a forecast card, and Civitatis shows tours you can pick from. Anthropic’s interactive connectors page says they are available to all users, and its main connector page confirms connectors work on every plan, including Free. A free account can also add one custom connector by pasting in its web address.

Claude’s plugins sit one level up. Anthropic’s plugins page says “Each plugin bundles skills, connectors, and sub-agents into a single package.” A skill is a set of written instructions Claude pulls in when a task calls for it, and sub-agents are helper AIs that take on part of a job. A sales plugin, for example, might bring a connector for your customer-contact software plus skills for writing call notes and follow-up emails.

Plugins need a paid plan: Pro, Max, Team or Enterprise. You install them from marketplaces. The default one is called Knowledge Work, and Anthropic runs others for specialist fields such as law and finance. All three kinds of add-on (skills, connectors and plugins) now sit in one Customize menu, each on its own tab.

One more term you may bump into: desktop extensions. These are connectors that run on your own computer inside the Claude desktop app, so they can reach files and programs on that machine.

If you want to write your own saved instructions, our guide to Claude skills shows how.

What does ChatGPT mean by plugins in 2026?

If you remember ChatGPT plugins from 2023, set that memory aside. Those were retired in 2024. Today’s plugins are built on the same MCP standard Claude uses, and they arrived through a string of renames:

• 2025: the first links to Google Drive, GitHub and similar services were called connectors.
• October 2025: OpenAI launched apps in ChatGPT, with partners such as Booking.com, Canva, Spotify and Zillow.
• December 2025: connectors were renamed apps.
• July 9, 2026: the App Directory became the Plugin Directory, according to OpenAI’s release notes.

OpenAI’s plugins help page separates the two. “An app connects ChatGPT to an external service, such as Google Drive or Slack … A plugin packages capabilities into a workflow and can include one or more apps, skills, or both.”

On paper, then, a ChatGPT plugin is built like a Claude plugin. In the directory, many are just one app with a plugin label. So day to day, a ChatGPT plugin behaves like a Claude connector.

You’ll find them under Plugins in the sidebar, or by typing @ in a chat. OpenAI hasn’t published how many there are. It has also said custom GPTs will be retired, with a way to move them over to plugins. If you built a custom GPT (a personalized ChatGPT bot), keep an eye on OpenAI’s release notes for the date.

What’s in Grok Bot’s Marketplace?

Grok Bot is SpaceXAI’s agent product. Your bots share a cloud computer and keep working after you close the app. (We tested it on real work in August.) Here, “Marketplace” means two different shelves:

• The Bot Marketplace holds ready-made bots other people built, such as one that watches your email and calendar for school forms, bills and invitations and drafts replies, and one that tracks where your name or brand comes up online and sends a weekday digest. Each one arrives with its memories, skills, routines and a list of the apps it uses. We counted roughly 70 to 80 across nine categories on the public marketplace page.
• The Marketplace tab under Plugins holds the add-ons themselves: Gmail, Slack, Notion, Upwork, X and so on. It is the plugin catalog from Cursor, a coding app SpaceX also owns, and we counted about 360 entries. SpaceXAI’s own guide says “Grok Bot supports the same MCP servers, plugins, and skills as Cursor.”

A few plugins there have no match on Claude or ChatGPT. There are official ones for X, including X Money for sending money to people on X, and brokerage plugins from Robinhood and Coinbase that can place trades. Those can move real money, so keep approvals switched on.

Plain Grok, the chatbot, has its own Connectors list, which is free for every user. It is a separate list tied to a separate account. As far as we could find, connecting Gmail in the Grok chatbot doesn’t connect it in Grok Bot. Our Grok connectors guide covers the chatbot side.

Which one should you start with?

Don’t pick an AI because of one connector. The everyday ones overlap: Gmail, Slack, Notion and Canva work in Claude, ChatGPT and Grok Bot. Upwork works in all three as well, though it no longer shows up when you search Claude’s public directory. We have it connected to our own Claude account. In Claude and ChatGPT it can search jobs and handle proposals, while Grok Bot’s Upwork plugin is built for people hiring freelancers.

Our recommendation depends on where you are now:

• You already pay for one of them. Stay there. Connect the one app you open every morning, usually your email or calendar, and use it for a week before adding more.
• You’re on a free plan. Claude is the easiest free place to start. Every plan gets connectors, and each directory page lists exactly what that connector can read and change. Grok’s connectors are free too, with a shorter list.
• You mostly want shopping, travel or home apps. ChatGPT and Claude both have Booking.com, Expedia, Instacart and Spotify. Only ChatGPT has Etsy and Zillow.
• You want something that keeps working while you’re away. That’s what AI agents are for. Grok Bot is built for it, and our agents vs chatbots guide explains the difference before you spend money.

Prices are on our Claude pricing, ChatGPT pricing and Grok pricing pages. For Grok Bot, the cheapest paid route is a $20 Cursor Pro plan, and there is a free trial.

Five checks before you connect anything

1. See what it can change. Claude’s directory pages list every action a connector can take. ChatGPT’s permission settings start at “Always ask.” The most open level, “Allow all actions,” appears only for some individual apps, and OpenAI says it “carries elevated risk.”
2. Keep approvals on for sending, buying and deleting. Claude checks with you before it books or buys anything, and ChatGPT’s “Always ask” setting makes it check before every action. Grok Bot offers Allow once, Always allow or Deny, plus Auto-review, where you write rules in plain English, such as “ask first before sending any external email.”
3. Check the training setting. On ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro, OpenAI may use information from apps to train its models if “Improve the model for everyone” is on. Anthropic says data from the consumer apps you connect to Claude isn’t used to train its models.
4. Watch for hidden instructions. A page or email can carry text written to steer the AI, a trick called prompt injection. Anthropic warns that “malicious MCP servers may include hidden instructions,” so connect only apps from companies you trust.
5. Know how to disconnect. In Claude, it’s Customize, then Connectors. In ChatGPT, it’s Settings, then Plugins (or Apps), then the three dots next to the app. Disconnecting in ChatGPT doesn’t delete memories it already saved. In Grok Bot, uninstall the plugin and also revoke access inside the service itself.

What about your passwords?

Passwords get their own arrangement. None of these plugins hands your saved passwords to the AI. Instead, 1Password now works alongside two of the assistants so the AI can sign in to websites without ever seeing a password. You approve each login as it happens, and 1Password fills it in. If you want an AI to work across lots of accounts, this is the piece that makes it practical.

• Claude: 1Password for Claude works with Claude in Chrome on a Mac, with a paid Claude plan. Claude can fill saved usernames, passwords and one-time codes, and 1Password shows you which login it wants before anything is filled.
• Grok Bot: since September 16, Grok Bot can use 1Password too. It creates a vault called “Shared with Grok Bot,” and the bot can only read the logins you move into it, so the rest of your vault stays private.
• ChatGPT: the 1Password plugin in ChatGPT’s directory is a developer tool for OpenAI’s coding assistant, Codex. It doesn’t fill website logins for you.

In both the Claude and Grok Bot setups, the AI uses logins you have already saved. Neither company documents the AI creating or saving new passwords on its own, so set up each account’s password yourself first.

Questions readers ask

Are today’s ChatGPT plugins the old 2023 plugins?
No. The 2023 plugins were retired in 2024. The current ones launched as “apps” in October 2025 and were renamed plugins in July 2026.

Is a Claude plugin the same as a ChatGPT plugin?
They are designed alike, since both can bundle several apps and skills. In everyday use, the ChatGPT plugin you install to reach one app matches a Claude connector.

Do I need to pay?
Not to start. Claude connectors and Grok connectors work on free accounts, and ChatGPT’s directory is open on every plan, though some plugins need a paid one. Claude plugins and Grok Bot need a paid plan, and Grok Bot has a free trial.

Can ChatGPT build my Etsy shop?
No. The Etsy plugin helps people shop on Etsy. For building a store by chatting, look at the Shopify plugin instead.

If I connect Gmail in Grok, does Grok Bot get it too?
Not that we could find. The Grok chatbot and Grok Bot sign in with different accounts and keep separate lists, so you connect each one separately.

Do I have to install MCP?
No. MCP is the standard these links are built on. You click Connect and sign in, and the app handles the rest.

Where this comes from

• Anthropic, Use connectors to extend Claude’s capabilities (plans, custom connectors, checked September 23, 2026)
• Anthropic, plugins help page (what a plugin bundles, paid plans)
• Claude connector directory (830 connectors counted September 23, 2026)
• OpenAI, Plugins in ChatGPT and Codex (apps vs plugins)
• OpenAI, ChatGPT release notes (Plugin Directory, July 9, 2026)
• OpenAI, Connected apps in ChatGPT (privacy and training)
• Etsy, the Etsy app in ChatGPT (May 2026)
• SpaceXAI, Grok Bot Marketplace and Cursor, Grok Bot settings
• SpaceXAI, Grok Connectors docs
• Grokipedia, Model Context Protocol

Read next

• Claude connectors guide: the work tools worth connecting, category by category.
• Grok connectors: what the free Grok chatbot can link to.
• Grok Bot: I tested it on real work: a first-hand look at the agent side.
• What is MCP? The standard underneath almost all of this.
• AI agents vs chatbots: when a connector becomes an agent.
• Claude skills and slash commands: the know-how half of a Claude plugin.
• ChatGPT review: where ChatGPT stands overall.
• The full AI glossary