🧠 AI Model Comparisons

610 articles. Rankings, head-to-head comparisons, pricing, and setup guides for every major AI model.

This hub tracks every major AI model we've covered on AI Made Tools β€” from Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek's V4 family to Claude, GPT, and Gemini. If you're trying to pick a model for a specific job, or just keep up with how fast this space moves, this is where we collect it: rankings, head-to-head comparisons, setup guides, and pricing breakdowns for the models developers actually use. We split coverage into Chinese and Western models because the two ecosystems move on different release cycles, pricing structures, and licensing terms. Coverage draws on hands-on testing where we've run a model ourselves, official vendor documentation, and published benchmarks β€” not just launch announcements.

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πŸ† Best Of / Rankings (76)

Best AI Agent Observability Platforms 2026: Monitor, Debug, and Optimize

The best platforms for observing AI agents in production. LangSmith, Langfuse, Helicone, Braintrust,

Best Mini PC for Ollama in 2026: Run Local AI in a Tiny Box

The best mini PCs for running Ollama and local LLMs. Mac Mini M4, Intel NUC, AMD Ryzen AI, and budge

Best NPU-Powered Mini PCs for Local AI in 2026

The best mini PCs with dedicated NPUs for local AI inference. Intel NPU, AMD Ryzen AI, and Qualcomm

πŸ‡¨πŸ‡³ Chinese Models (202)

DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, and MiniMax β€” often the cheapest and fastest-moving options, several with permissive open-weight licenses.

DeepSeek V4.1 Flash vs Gemini 3.8 Flash: Coding, Agents and API Cost

Compare DeepSeek V4.1 Flash and Gemini 3.8 Flash for coding and agents, including pricing structure,

Ornith 1.5 35B-A3B: Specs, Benchmarks and How to Run It Locally

Ornith 1.5 is a 35B MoE coding and agent model with about 3B active parameters, 262K context, vision

AI Dev Weekly #23: Qwen4 Architecture Preview, GPT-5.6 Lands in Kiro, Gemini Takes On Whisper

Week of Aug 21-27: Qwen previews its Qwen4 architecture, GPT-5.6 lands in Kiro, Gemini launches dedi

πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ Western Models (171)

Claude, GPT, Gemini, Mistral, and Llama β€” the models most production teams default to, with the most mature tooling ecosystems.

GPT-6 Astra Explained: API Pricing, Context, Computer Use & Availability

GPT-6 Astra has 1.05M context, 128K output, built-in agent tools and $10/$50 API pricing. Here is wh

GPT-6 Astra vs GPT-5.6 Sol: Pricing, Tools and the Right OpenAI Model

Compare GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 Sol on price, context, agent tools, reasoning and availability to ch

AI Dev Weekly #24: Gemini 3.8 Flash Goes GA, Fable 5.1 Cuts Agent Cache Costs, Agent Plugins 1.0 Ships

Week of Aug 28-Sep 3: Gemini 3.8 Flash reaches production, Claude Fable 5.1 changes agent economics,

βš”οΈ Head-to-Head (108)

Nex N2.5 Mini vs Pro: Pricing, Context and Agent Use

Compare Nex N2.5 Mini and Pro for coding agents, computer use, reasoning, tool calling, OpenRouter a

Gemini 3.8 Flash vs Claude Fable 5.1: Coding, Agents and API Cost

Compare Gemini 3.8 Flash and Claude Fable 5.1 for coding agents, multimodal workflows, context, tool

Cursor vs Claude Code vs Windsurf: Three-Way AI Coding Tool Comparison

Cursor, Claude Code, and Windsurf compared on features, pricing, and which AI coding tool fits your

πŸ“– Setup Guides (43)

Grok 4.6: Complete Guide to Pricing, Benchmarks, and the New xhigh Tier (2026)

Grok 4.6 shipped August 12, 2026 at the same $2/$6 pricing as Grok 4.5, with a new xhigh reasoning t

Hermes Agent Complete Guide: Local Agents, Tools and Memory (2026)

How Nous Research's open-source Hermes Agent handles local deployment, tools, memory, messaging, pro

I Used Poolside for a Week β€” The Coding Agent That Trains on Its Own Code

Week 17 of my AI tool series. Poolside's RLCEF training runs your code during training. After a week

πŸ’° Pricing (10)

Mercury 2.5 Preview Explained: Diffusion LLM Speed, Pricing and API

Inception Mercury 2.5 Preview is a 260K-context diffusion language model with reasoning, tools, stru

Edge AI Chip Pricing Compared: Jetson, Coral, Hailo, and NPUs (2026)

Complete pricing breakdown for edge AI chips and boards. NVIDIA Jetson, Google Coral, Hailo, Intel N

AI Dev Weekly #20: Claude Opus 5 at Half Fable 5's Price, Flash Models Compared, Image/Video API Pricing

Week of July 24-30: Anthropic ships Opus 5 at $5/$25. Flash model comparison reveals Gemini 3.6 Flas