At the end of 2025, Mira appeared in Telegram — an AI agent from The Open Platform (TOP) with access to 1000 integrations, video and image generation, and 1.2 million monthly users as of June 2026. A mass launch, big marketing, loud positioning.
Against that backdrop, the VELA platform looks far more modest. Far fewer users. No integration with hundreds of services and apps, and no video generation. But it has something else — and for some people that matters more than a noisy start.
This article isn't a ranking or an ad. It's an honest comparison of two different approaches: the modest VELA startup with an AI assistant versus the mass-market Mira AI agent built right into Telegram.
One bot for everyone, or your own personal one
The first and most fundamental difference isn't in features — it's in the very concept.
Mira is @mira_ibot. One shared bot for all Telegram users. You go into it, chat with it, perform the actions and settings you need. Convenient, fast, no registration on your side.
VELA works differently. You create your own Telegram bot through @BotFather — with your name, the avatar you choose, your description. Then, a couple of minutes after signing in, you connect it to the VELA platform, and it turns into a full-fledged AI assistant. This bot belongs to you. Not to VELA, not to TON Foundation — to you. It's your personal AI assistant.
Who might this matter to? To those who want a personal tool, not access to a shared service. To those who work across several teams and don't want their work requests mixed with other people's sessions. To those for whom the very feeling of "this is my assistant" matters, rather than "I'm using a shared bot."
Which model is under the hood — and why it matters
On its free plan, Mira uses MiniMax, GPT-5 Mini and Qwen — not a single Claude. The strong models (Claude Opus, Claude Sonnet, GPT-5.5, GPT-5, GLM 5.1) are only on Pro, which costs about $21/mo when paying with Telegram Stars. And you have to pick the model manually from a list.
VELA uses Claude from Anthropic on all plans, including the free Basic. On the Basic plan — Claude Haiku; on the Pro plan — Claude Sonnet for complex tasks and Haiku for fast answers. You don't need to choose the model by hand — the AI assistant picks it for the task itself. This isn't a marketing claim — it's a real difference you feel in the quality of the answers.
Claude is one of the strongest language models for reasoning quality and working with the Russian language. Answers are structured, without clutter, with fewer hallucinations that hide under a confident tone. This is especially noticeable in tasks where accuracy matters: analyzing documents, complex queries and topics, working with data.
There's a more practical point too. Mira is a product with hundreds of thousands of users and global reach. It understands different languages, but sometimes the AI agent mixes languages in one answer — for example, it replies in Chinese and adds Russian text at the end. VELA's AI assistant doesn't have this problem: it answers in the language you wrote in, without mixing.
Answers and capabilities: the difference is in the details
A stock or currency rate — any AI agent will answer, Mira included. The question is exactly how.
After every answer — even a simple question about the dollar rate — Mira not only thinks slowly and outputs extra lines while generating the answer, but also often adds:
"Unlock my superpowers, I'll be 3× faster on Pro"
An important point: in Mira's free version, ads for third-party brands appear right above the chat. Combined with the constant upgrade pushes, this makes the overall impression of the product feel cheap.
VELA's AI assistant answers faster, with no duplicate lines, ads or upgrade offers, and suggests an upgrade only when you ask for a specific feature that isn't on your current plan. Quality and speed of answers — that's what sets VELA apart.
By the way, on the financial side, VELA's AI assistant on the Basic plan already includes currency, crypto and stock rates, as well as market indices, commodity and precious-metal quotes. On the Pro plan it adds advanced search for rare crypto tokens by contract address and price alerts on any asset.
If you follow the markets, that alone is a reason to choose VELA.
What Mira has that VELA doesn't
An honest comparison requires honesty in both directions.
Mira can:
Summarize Telegram group chats — VELA can't
Generate video (Kling, Veo 3) — VELA only generates images (Flux Dev on the Pro plan)
Private mode via the Cocoon network (encrypting requests through the blockchain) — VELA doesn't have this
1000 integrations — VELA has only 3 (Google Workspace, Notion, and reading Telegram channels through your personal account)
Manual choice of an LLM model from a dozen options — with VELA the model is picked automatically for the task
More than a million monthly users and positioning as the leading AI agent in Telegram — VELA has neither
If you need summarization of work chats, hundreds of integrations, or higher-quality video and image generation — Mira is the obvious choice. This isn't a flaw in VELA, these are different products with different focuses and goals.
Price and features
Mira Pro costs about $21/mo in Telegram Stars. There's also a free plan — it runs on MiniMax, GPT-5 Mini and Qwen, without Claude.
VELA:
Basic — $0, Claude Haiku, 15 messages a day, 9 modules out of the box.
Pro — $9/mo ($7 with annual billing), Claude Sonnet for complex tasks + Haiku for fast ones, unlimited messages, plus flight search, price alerts, advanced cryptocurrency search, Google Workspace, Notion, image generation, and reading Telegram channels. Payment by card or Telegram Stars (690 Stars ≈ $9).
Important: Claude on VELA's AI assistant Basic plan is what you'd pay about $21 for with Mira. If the model under the hood matters — the math and the decision are simple.
Who each one suits
Mira is a good choice if you need a quick start without registration, group summarization, video generation and high-quality images, hundreds of integrations, or you just want to try AI in a messenger without extra steps. A mass-market product made for a broad audience.
VELA — if a personal branded bot under your own name matters to you, Claude from day one without extra pay, ready-made modules out of the box without fuss, and an AI assistant that answers correctly, quickly, and without intrusive upgrade ads. And it costs $9/mo for the full plan — against about $21 for Mira, more than twice as cheap. VELA isn't a product for everyone — it's a tool for those who need accuracy, individuality, simplicity and speed, not scale.
When choosing an AI assistant for everyday tasks, it's worth deciding first: do you need a universal one-click AI agent or a personal tool for work and life.
FAQ
Is Mira free or paid? Mira's basic version is free, but it uses MiniMax, GPT-5 Mini and Qwen. Any Claude (Opus and Sonnet) is available only on Pro for ~$21/mo in Telegram Stars.
Can I use VELA's AI assistant without technical knowledge? Yes. All you need is to create a new bot through @BotFather in Telegram (takes a couple of minutes, the platform will guide you through the steps during signup), paste your bot's token when connecting to VELA — and the AI assistant is ready to work right away. No code, no servers, no pain, done in 5 minutes.