Difference between useChat and useAssistant?

[mosnicholas]

Hey all -- curious what the difference is between useAssistant and useChat? Is there a reason to prefer one over the other?

[JeromeD3]

I also want to know. It seems that there is no difference from the code and description on the official website.

[jeremyphilemon]

Both the hooks are similar in their use, but are different in how they work. Your preference will vary based on the following differences.

useChat

• uses a chat.completion like endpoint, see streamText
• supports various providers
• you have to use callbacks to persist messages in your database
• tools, model, and system prompts are defined in your route handler

useAssistant

• uses a assistants.create endpoint
• current only supports OpenAI
• the messages are automatically stored in a database by OpenAI
• tools, model, and system prompts are defined in OpenAI's assistant dashboard