AI Models for Vibe Coders
A curated, opinionated guide to the models that matter for coding, agentic workflows, and tool use. Skip the noise — here's what to actually use.
Full model database at LLMReference.com →Daily Drivers
The models you'll reach for every day — best-in-class coding, reasoning, and tool use.
Claude
Claude is Anthropic's most capable AI for complex reasoning, coding, and tool use — the top choice for developers building agentic systems.
OpenAI Models
OpenAI's GPT and reasoning models power GitHub Copilot and countless production applications — fast, reliable, and excellent at code generation and reasoning.
Google Gemini
Gemini is Google's multimodal AI model with the largest context window available — 1M+ tokens for processing entire codebases in a single request.
Power Tools
Open-source and specialized models for when you need more control, lower cost, or fine-tuning.
DeepSeek
DeepSeek is an open-source coding powerhouse — state-of-the-art reasoning and code generation that rivals closed models while remaining completely open.
Meta Llama
Meta Llama is the most popular open-source model family — excellent for local development, fine-tuning, and self-hosted deployments with strong coding capabi...
Mistral
Mistral provides efficient, open-source models optimized for production — specialized for code generation with the Codestral model and strong general-purpose...
Inference Platforms
Hosted runtimes for running open-source models at production speed and scale.
Groq
Groq is the speed champion for AI inference — custom-built Language Processing Units (LPUs) deliver ultra-fast responses, critical for real-time coding assis...
Fireworks AI
Fireworks is an inference platform optimized for running open-source models (Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral) at production scale with competitive speed and cost.
Together AI
Together is a cloud platform providing fast, cost-effective inference for 200+ open-source models plus fine-tuning and training capabilities.
Watch List
Emerging models worth tracking as they mature.