Hey everyone,
I’ve been learning the OpenAI API for the past few months and ended up building something bigger than I expected — a web app called Nova that lets you test and compare different AI models side by side, including GPT-5.5 and other models.
The idea started because I wanted to understand how different models handle the same prompts. Like, how does GPT-5.5 compare to Gemini on coding tasks? How does Claude handle creative writing vs GPT? Instead of switching between 5 different websites, I built one interface to test them all.
What it does:
- Switch between 30+ models mid-conversation (GPT-5.5 is the default — it’s just the best for most things)
- Built-in image generation (GPT-image-2 + others)
- Vision/image analysis
- Web search for real-time answers
- Chat history so you can go back and compare responses
Tech details for anyone curious:
- OpenAI API via OpenRouter for model routing
- FastAPI backend, vanilla JS frontend
- SQLite for chat persistence
- Runs on a free-tier GCP VM
- Built the whole thing solo
The coolest thing I learned: GPT-5.5 consistently outperforms most other models on multi-step reasoning. It’s not even close on complex tasks.
I’m a student and still learning — would love feedback from this community, especially on how I’m using the API. Any tips on optimizing token usage or improving streaming performance?