Which LLM is the Best? A Guide to the Top Large Language Models

What is a Large Language Model?

A Large Language Model (LLM) is a type of artificial intelligence built on machine learning concepts, specifically using a neural network architecture known as a transformer architecture and generative pre-trained transformer models. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of text data and are capable of understanding and generating natural and programming languages.

More advanced generative AI models can process multiple types of inputs, including text, images, audio, and video, making them versatile for various applications such as chatbots, language translation, and text summarization.

LLMs are designed to be scalable and can be fine-tuned for specific tasks and domains. They are evaluated based on their capabilities, cost efficiency, and applicability across platforms, highlighting their growing role in everyday technology.

PS: You can test all the most important models on Wordware. We provide access to all relevant models, and whenever a new one is released, we make it available within a few hours.

How Large Language Models Work

Through natural language processing, LLMs are trained on large datasets and use neural networks to generate text.

The neural networks are trained to recognize patterns in the data and generate text that is coherent and relevant. They achieve this by learning relationships between words, sentences, and concepts during training, allowing them to predict what comes next in a sequence and produce responses that fit the given context. In simpler terms, it’s like learning how sentences usually flow and using that knowledge to create new, meaningful text.

For example, if you ask a model to complete the sentence “The cat is sleeping on the…”, it might predict “sofa” or “bed” because it has learned from patterns in data that cats often sleep on these items.

LLMs can be fine-tuned for specific tasks and applications, making them a capable model for various performance and cost-efficiency needs.

How Best Large Language Models (LLMs) Differ

LLMs are transforming how we interact with AI, but not all models are created equal. From architecture and size to multimodal capabilities and cost efficiency, here’s a breakdown of how these models differ from one another.

Architecture and Size

LLMs vary significantly in their structure and the number of parameters they use.

Parameter count: Large Language Models (LLMs) vary widely in their parameter counts, which generally correlates with their computational power and capabilities, though it’s not the sole determinant of performance.

For instance, smaller models like Gemma with 2 billion parameters and GPT-2 with 1.5 billion parameters can handle basic tasks efficiently. Medium-sized models, such as LLaMA (which ranges from 7 to 65 billion parameters) and GPT-3 with 175 billion parameters, bring more versatility and deeper understanding to language processing. On the other hand, extremely large models like PaLM (540 billion parameters) and GPT-4, speculated to have over 1 trillion parameters, push the boundaries of what LLMs can achieve in terms of contextual understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving.

However, bigger isn’t always better—smaller or medium-sized models can sometimes outperform larger ones on specific tasks due to optimization or specialization, as other factors like training data quality, architecture design, and fine-tuning techniques are equally important. So, while parameter count gives a general sense of a model’s scale, it’s not the only measure of its effectiveness.

Architecture design: Most LLMs, including large language model Meta developments, are built on the transformer architecture, known for its self-attention mechanism and parallel processing, which allow models to understand context and process data efficiently. Key components like multi-head attention and feedforward networks enhance their ability to capture nuances in language.

Ongoing developments focus on making architectures more efficient, such as OpenAI’s o1-mini for specific tasks, while also addressing ethical concerns like bias mitigation. These advancements are crucial for improving performance, versatility, and resource efficiency in LLMs.

Training Data and Methodology

The way LLMs are trained influences their knowledge base and specialization.

• Data sources: Training data for LLMs includes web pages, books, and specialized corpora, which shape the model’s knowledge and biases.
• Training techniques: Pretraining and fine-tuning methods differ, impacting model behavior and specialization for tasks.

Multimodal Capabilities

Some LLMs are designed to handle more than just text.

• Input types: Advanced models can process images, audio, and video alongside text, making them more versatile.
• Data integration: Techniques like early, mid, or late fusion enable LLMs to combine information from different sources seamlessly.

Performance and Cost Efficiency

LLM performance and cost efficiency are key factors that differentiate models, as they influence both the speed of responses and the resources required to deploy them.

• Inference speed: Models optimized in their architecture can generate responses faster. For instance, models like Mistral 7B are designed to provide efficient performance despite their smaller size.
• Cost efficiency: The cost for users typically depends on the number of tokens processed (input and output). For example, using GPT-4 can cost up to $15 per 1M input tokens and $30 per 1M output tokens, while GPT-3.5 Turbo is significantly cheaper at $0.50 per 1M input tokens and $1.50 per 1M output tokens. Smaller, task-specific models like OpenAI’s o1-mini offer even lower costs at $3 per 1M input tokens and $12 per 1M output tokens, making them more economical for certain use cases.

Choosing the right model depends on usage volume and required capabilities, as frequent API calls can lead to substantial cumulative costs. Optimizing model selection based on the specific needs of the application ensures a balance between performance and cost efficiency.

Ethical Considerations and Bias Handling

AI models can differ in how they address bias and safety issues.

• Bias mitigation: Some models include mechanisms to better handle biases present in the data they were trained on.
• Safety protocols: Models may employ content filtering and ethical guidelines to ensure safer user interactions. For example, Claude 3.5 Sonnet may offer more flexibility for certain use cases, while GPT-4o or Gemini Models are known for stricter safety measures, which could impact the freedom in exploring various topics.

Accessibility and Customization

How LLMs are deployed and customized can vary.

• API access: Many models are accessible via APIs, but the extent of customization or fine-tuning allowed differs.
• Deployment options: Some models support on-premise installations, while others are only available through cloud services.

In conclusion, LLMs differ across various dimensions, from architecture to ethical considerations. These differences affect how they perform, their versatility, and their cost, making it essential to choose the right model for specific applications.

Types of Language Models

Language models can be broadly categorized into multiple categories, including open-source and proprietary models, each offering distinct advantages depending on the use case.

Open-Source Language Models

Open-source language models, such as Guanaco, BERT, and Qwen-1.5, are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. These models are popular in research and development, allowing for customization and innovation without the cost of licensing fees.

Examples of prominent open-source models include large language model Meta 's LLaMA series, BLOOM, Falcon models, and Mistral AI models. These models provide flexibility for organizations that require more control over their AI systems and can be modified for specific applications. The transparency and cost-effectiveness of open-source models make them ideal for organizations looking to deploy AI without significant upfront costs.

Proprietary Language Models

Proprietary language models are developed and maintained by private companies and are typically accessed through APIs or cloud platforms. These models come with licensing or subscription fees but often deliver more advanced capabilities and commercial support.

Notable examples of proprietary models include OpenAI’s GPT models (GPT-3, GPT-4), Google’s PaLM and Gemini models, Anthropic’s Claude series, and Cohere’s Command models. These models are widely used in commercial applications where high performance, regular updates, and robust support are essential, though they tend to be more expensive than open-source options.

In summary, the choice between open-source and proprietary models depends on an organization’s needs for flexibility, transparency, and budget versus performance, support, and ease of implementation. Each type offers different benefits depending on the project scope and technical requirements.

Top Large Language Models in 2024

As the capabilities of LLMs continue to evolve, several models stand out for their unique strengths, efficiency, and performance across a variety of applications. Each model brings specialized features that make it suitable for different use cases, from handling large datasets to excelling in coding, language understanding, and multimodal tasks. Here’s a detailed overview of the top LLMs in 2024, focusing on their most prominent features and specializations.

GPT-O1 (OpenAI)

• Overview: OpenAI’s most advanced model, introduced in 2024, surpasses previous models like GPT-4o with its focus on complex reasoning and STEM fields.
• Key Features: The o1-preview version is designed for highly complex tasks, while the o1-mini offers a more cost-effective alternative optimized for coding and mathematical reasoning.
• Strengths: Known for its exceptional ability to generate and debug complex code, GPT-O1 leverages chain-of-thought reasoning for intricate problem-solving. It has shown remarkable performance in STEM fields, with an 83% success rate in mathematics Olympiad exams and advanced capabilities in scientific reasoning. While it is more expensive than previous models (6x the cost of GPT-4o for API access), o1-mini provides a budget-friendly alternative with 80% lower costs, making it accessible for a wide range of applications.

GPT-4 and GPT-4 Turbo (OpenAI)

• Overview: One of the most advanced LLMs available, continuing to lead the field in both performance and versatility.
• Key Features: Multimodal capabilities, processing both text and images seamlessly.
• Strengths: High performance across numerous benchmarks, excelling in natural language understanding, reasoning, and general knowledge tasks. Its broad capabilities make it suitable for complex applications in various domains, from creative writing to technical problem-solving.

Claude 3.5 Sonnet (Anthropic)

• Overview: Recognized for its advanced reasoning capabilities and large context window, Claude 3.5 Sonnet is particularly effective in complex analytical tasks.
• Key Features: Advanced reasoning and coding capabilities, alongside a broader knowledge base.
• Strengths: Excels in graduate-level reasoning, complex document processing, and coding tasks, with a 64% success rate in solving coding problems. Praised for its ethical AI focus and built-in safety measures, making it suitable for applications that prioritize responsible AI use.

Gemini 1.5 Pro (Google)

• Overview: Released in September 2024, Gemini 1.5 Pro is a cutting-edge multimodal model designed to handle large datasets and complex reasoning tasks.
• Key Features: A massive 2,097,152 token context window (equivalent to about 2,000 pages of text) and the ability to process text, images, audio, and video.
• Strengths: Gemini 1.5 Pro is highly versatile, excelling in high-context tasks such as video analysis, audio transcription, and data integration. It can handle up to 2 hours of video, 19 hours of audio, or 60,000 lines of code, making it ideal for multimodal and long-form content processing.

Mistral Large 2 (Mistral AI)

• Overview: A powerhouse model focused on technical tasks, Mistral Large 2, released in July 2024, combines high performance with efficiency.
• Key Features: With 123 billion parameters and a 128,000 token context window, Mistral Large 2 is optimized for long-context applications and single-node inference.
• Strengths: Excels in code generation, mathematics, and multilingual capabilities. It outperforms larger models in technical benchmarks such as HumanEval and MMLU, making it a top choice for complex business applications, code generation, and technical problem-solving.

LLaMA 3 (Meta)

• Overview: Meta’s leading open-source LLM series, LLaMA 3 offers a range of parameter sizes and strong performance across various tasks.
• Key Features: Available in versions with up to 90 billion parameters, LLaMA 3 features a 128K token context window and improved multilingual support for eight languages.
• Strengths: Known for its open-source flexibility, LLaMA model is highly customizable and cost-effective, making it ideal for developers looking to fine-tune models for specific tasks. The 90B version excels at general knowledge, long-form text generation, and coding.

Command R+ (Cohere)

• Overview: Command R+ is designed for complex retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows, excelling in multi-step tool use and fine-tuning.
• Key Features: With a 128K token context window and strong multilingual capabilities, Command R+ is optimized for tasks that require high accuracy in financial document processing and logical problem-solving.
• Strengths: Known for its speed and accuracy in handling diverse datasets, Command R+ supports game development with its GML language capabilities and excels in question-answering tasks, particularly in domains like finance and legal documentation.

Whether you need advanced reasoning, multimodal processing, or efficient technical workflows, all the models offer different capabilities to suit your needs. The right model will depend on the specific requirements of your task, from handling large datasets and complex code generation to high-performance multilingual and multimodal applications.

Comparison of LLMs Across Different Industries

Industry-specific models have emerged to address the specialized needs of various sectors. These models are tailored to optimize performance in domains such as healthcare, finance, legal, and coding, offering greater efficiency and accuracy in their respective use cases. Below is a comparison of LLMs across different industries and the best models suited for specific tasks.

Healthcare

LLMs in healthcare are designed to handle medical terminology, patient data, and clinical tasks with high precision. Some of the leading models include:

• BioBERT: Pre-trained on biomedical corpora and optimized for tasks like drug discovery and protein interaction.
• ClinicalBERT: Tailored for clinical text, with applications in predicting hospital readmission rates and processing electronic health records.
• Med-PaLM 2 (Google): Focused on enhancing medical language understanding, including diagnostic reasoning and patient interactions.
• ClinicalGPT: Designed specifically for clinical documentation and decision-making, aiding healthcare professionals in data-driven diagnostics.

Finance

In the financial industry, LLMs are trained to process vast amounts of data, perform sentiment analysis, and support decision-making in areas like investments, fraud detection, and reporting:

• BloombergGPT: A 50-billion parameter model trained on proprietary financial data, excelling in financial analysis, data processing, and sentiment analysis.
• FinBERT: An open-source model built for financial sentiment classification, trained on a variety of financial texts.
• FinGPT: An open-source LLM for finance, focused on robo-advising, credit scoring, and risk management, making it highly versatile for financial institutions.

Legal

The legal domain benefits from LLMs that specialize in contract analysis, case law research, and due diligence tasks:

• Legal-specific LLMs are in development by multiple organizations, fine-tuning models for tasks such as patent screening, contract review, and legal research. While specific model names are less prominent in the legal field, LLMs like FinGPT and general-purpose models such as GPT-4 are adapted for these tasks by leveraging legal datasets.

Software Development

In the rapidly growing field of software development, several LLMs are specifically optimized for code generation, debugging, and overall developer productivity. Startups are also focusing on building foundational models and tools to streamline software development, making LLMs even more effective.

• CodeLlama (Meta): A specialized 70B parameter model designed to generate code and handle complex programming tasks. It supports various programming languages and frameworks, offering developers efficient solutions for handling intricate codebases.
• Copilot: Based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, it integrates directly into IDEs, offering real-time coding suggestions and increasing developer efficiency. It’s a well-established tool for assisting with code completion and providing intelligent recommendations.
• WizardCoder: Built on top of CodeLlama, it comes in versions ranging from 7B to 34B parameters, providing robust performance in coding tasks and excelling at debugging and optimization.
• Phind-CodeLlama: This 34B parameter model is fine-tuned on complex programming problems and has achieved top rankings on coding leaderboards.

Companies like Poolside, Cognition Labs, and Codeium are building foundational models specifically for software development, enhancing productivity and code quality by offering custom models that integrate with existing developer tools and leverage a company’s own data through AI-powered code editors.

Niche Language Models

In addition to broad industry applications, niche LLMs have been developed to cater to specific languages and regional markets. For example Bielik: A Polish-language model with 11 billion parameters, tailored for processing and understanding Polish text. Bielik is particularly useful in business, legal, and scientific applications within Poland, as it addresses the cultural and linguistic nuances often missed by general-purpose LLMs.

Niche models like Bielik offer significant advantages for localized tasks, providing better cultural context and language accuracy compared to general models, which often underperform in specific languages.

Summary

Industry-specific LLMs outperform general-purpose models in specialized fields because they are fed domain-specific inputs and trained with optimized architectures. Whether in healthcare with BioBERT or ClinicalGPT, finance with BloombergGPT and FinBERT, or software development with CodeLlama and GitHub Copilot, these models are fine-tuned to address specific needs, offering more precise and effective solutions. In niche areas like Polish language processing, models like Bielik lead the way, providing powerful tools for navigating local contexts and languages.

Each of these models brings tailored capabilities that can help organizations improve workflows, enhance decision-making, and optimize performance based on their industry-specific needs. Other LLMs may provide alternative approaches to solving domain-specific challenges.

Choosing the Right Model

Integration with Existing Technical Ecosystem

When choosing a large language model, consider the integration with your existing technical ecosystem. Consider the APIs, compatibility levels with your tech stack, and varying resource requirements for deployment and maintenance.

Costs and Affordability

Consider the costs and affordability of the model. Open-source models are often free, but may require infrastructure costs. Proprietary models may be more expensive, but offer more advanced features and support. The technology innovation institute has played a significant role in advancing AI technology through the creation of open-source models, showcasing their performance, accessibility, and training processes.

Scalability

Consider the scalability of the model. Language model can handle large workloads, but may require significant resources. Consider the ability of the model to adapt to changing demands.

Additional Factors to Consider

When selecting a Large Language Model (LLM), there are several factors to consider to ensure you choose the best model for your specific needs. Here are some key considerations:

1. Token and Rate Limits: Token limits define the maximum number of tokens a model can process in one interaction, while rate limits refer to how many requests can be made in a given period. Both impact performance and usage, so it’s important to assess these limits based on your use case and subscription tier.
2. Training Data and Language Understanding: The quality and diversity of data used for training directly affect the model’s ability to perform across a wide range of tasks and languages. Consider models that have been trained on extensive datasets and have strong natural language processing capabilities to meet your specific language or task requirements.
3. Fine-Tuning and Model Customization: Fine-tuning allows you to adapt a model to your specific needs. Look for LLMs that offer customization options, enabling you to tailor the model for your domain or application.
4. Open-Source vs. Proprietary: Open-source models provide greater flexibility and are often more cost-effective but may require more technical expertise for setup. Proprietary models typically offer better support and maintenance but come with higher costs. Weigh these factors based on your resources and long-term needs.
5. Model Architecture, Parameter Count, and Size: The underlying architecture, number of parameters, and size of the model influence performance and efficiency. Transformer-based models, for example, excel in specific tasks. It’s important to choose a model with an appropriate parameter count and size that balances performance and infrastructure requirements.
6. Support, Maintenance, and Data Privacy: Ensure that the model provider offers robust support, including active communities, documentation, and regular maintenance. Additionally, consider the model’s data privacy and security features, especially if your use case involves handling sensitive or regulated information.

By considering these factors, you can choose the best Large Language Model for your specific needs and ensure you get the most out of your LLM.

Performance Metrics for LLMs

Evaluating the performance of a Large Language Model (LLM) is essential to understanding its capabilities and optimizing it for specific applications. Performance metrics offer valuable insights into various aspects of model behavior, from accuracy to efficiency, and help developers and researchers assess both strengths and limitations.

Evaluating Model Efficiency

Model efficiency is crucial for understanding how well an LLM performs in practical settings. Key metrics include:

• Perplexity: A standard measure of a model’s ability to predict the next word in a sequence. Lower perplexity indicates that the model is better at making accurate predictions, and is commonly used to evaluate language models’ performance in text generation.
• Inference Time: Measures the time it takes for the model to generate a response. Faster inference times are critical for scalability and real-time applications, ensuring smoother user experiences, particularly for large-scale deployments.
• Tokens Rendered per Second: This metric is especially important in streaming applications, as it evaluates how quickly a model can generate and display tokens, impacting the overall user interaction speed.

Text Generation and Translation Metrics

For tasks like translation, summarization, and text generation, the following metrics are commonly used:

• BLEU Score: Evaluates how closely the machine-generated text matches a set of reference translations. Higher BLEU scores indicate better performance, especially in translation tasks.
• ROUGE Score: Often used for text summarization, it focuses on recall and measures the overlap between generated and reference text, with higher scores suggesting better summarization quality.
• F1 Score: Balances precision and recall to give a comprehensive view of the model’s ability to make accurate predictions. It is useful in scenarios where both false positives and false negatives are critical to assess.

Task-Specific Performance

Certain metrics are tailored to specific tasks to provide a more nuanced understanding of a model’s abilities:

• Accuracy: For tasks such as question answering and classification, accuracy measures the percentage of correct outputs relative to total predictions, making it a straightforward indicator of performance.
• Contextual Understanding: For applications requiring large context windows, like processing extensive code or documents, metrics such as the token context window size are essential to determine how much information a model can retain and use effectively.
• Named Entity Recognition (NER): Metrics such as precision, recall, and F1 score are applied in tasks involving the identification and classification of entities within text, important for industries like finance, legal, and healthcare.

Advanced Evaluation Techniques

• Human Evaluation: While automated metrics are helpful, human evaluations of fluency, coherence, and quality provide critical insights that metrics like BLEU or ROUGE may miss. This method assesses whether a model’s output is not only accurate but also natural and contextually appropriate.
• BERTScore: Using BERT embeddings, BERTScore calculates the similarity between tokens in the generated and reference texts, providing a more context-aware evaluation compared to traditional metrics.

By combining these metrics, researchers and developers can obtain a comprehensive view of an LLM’s performance across different tasks and contexts, identifying opportunities for optimization and further development. This multifaceted approach ensures that models are both technically proficient and practical for real-world applications.

The Future of Language Models

The future of Large Language Models (LLMs) is set to bring more power, affordability, and versatility across various industries. Here’s a look at the key trends shaping the next generation of LLMs.

More Powerful and Multimodal Capabilities

Future LLMs will integrate text, images, audio, and video, significantly enhancing their ability to handle complex, multimodal tasks. Other LLMs continue to emerge with unique capabilities and specializations. Models like Gemini Ultra and GPT-5 will push the boundaries of logical reasoning and problem-solving, making them applicable to even more advanced fields, such as scientific research and creative industries.

Decreasing Costs and Increased Accessibility

As technology advances, the cost of using and deploying LLMs will steadily decrease. Platforms like Wordware and Google AI Studio are making these tools more accessible to both developers and non-developers. Pricing models such as pay-per-token and the option for on-premise deployment are helping make LLMs more affordable, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Additionally, improvements in model design are reducing hardware requirements, further lowering the costs for users.

Adoption Across Multiple Industries

LLMs are set to become foundational tools across many sectors, including healthcare, finance, and software development. Industry-specific models, such as Med-PaLM 2 for healthcare and Bielik for niche markets like Polish-language tasks, will enable more accurate and efficient applications, allowing companies to leverage AI in ways that were previously inaccessible.

Efficiency and Specialized Models

With a focus on efficiency, future LLMs will not only become more powerful but also more specialized. Smaller, domain-specific models will be developed for targeted tasks, such as CodeLlama for software development. These specialized models will deliver higher performance with reduced computational demands, allowing for broader use across industries without the need for high-powered infrastructure.

The combination of increased capabilities, reduced costs, and widespread adoption will define the future of LLMs, making them indispensable tools in industries worldwide. human feedback.

Best Practices for Using LLMs

When utilizing LLMs in scientific, professional, or creative contexts, adhering to best practices ensures more accurate and ethical use. Below are key strategies to guide effective LLM usage.

Understand Limitations and Capabilities

It’s essential to recognize that while LLMs are powerful tools, they are not without limitations. Always be aware of the potential for generating inaccurate or biased information, and approach the model’s outputs with a critical mindset.

Validate and Verify

Always cross-check the model’s outputs with reliable sources. Use empirical evidence or expert opinions to confirm the accuracy of the information provided by LLMs, ensuring that generated content is trustworthy and verifiable.

Provide Clear Context and Instructions

Providing detailed and specific instructions in your prompts helps guide the language model toward accurate and relevant results. Clearly outline the context, constraints, and objectives to enhance the quality of the responses.

Experiment with Multiple Models and Optimize Prompting

Experimenting with a mix of models can help you achieve better results without necessarily fine-tuning your own model or investing in a more expensive one. For tasks like generating social media posts, general-purpose multimodal models can not only generate high-quality copy but also create accompanying images, making them highly effective for comprehensive content creation.

Additionally, investing time in crafting and refining prompts can significantly improve output, making it unnecessary to rely on costlier solutions.