Keywords AI
Choosing the right large language model (LLM) API in 2025 can feel overwhelming, especially with so many providers offering different strengths, pricing, and features. In this blog, we’ll introduce the top 10 platforms — highlighting what they do best, how they price their services, and the specific scenarios they’re suited for.
Fireworks AI
What is Fireworks AI?
Fireworks AI is a generative inference platform built for speed, scalability, and production-readiness. Its proprietary FireAttention engine efficiently handles text, image, and audio tasks, while strict HIPAA and SOC2 compliance ensures data stays secure. The platform also offers on-demand deployment and the ability to fine-tune models for specific needs.
Why should use Fireworks AI?
Fireworks AI keeps latency impressively low, so your applications feel smooth and responsive. Its hosting infrastructure is highly stable, minimizing downtime and performance issues. Plus, an active and supportive community ensures you can quickly find help and share insights as you build and optimize your AI projects.
Fireworks AI models
Fireworks AI hosts hundreds of open-source models, including popular text-based options like DeepSeek v3, Llama, and Qwen, as well as image-generation tools like Stable Diffusion. Multi-LoRA capabilities enable swift fine-tuning, so you can easily adapt models to meet your performance needs.
Fireworks AI pricing
Pricing is determined by model size and complexity. Smaller models, up to four billion parameters, start at $0.10 per million tokens, while larger or specialized models can run up to $3.00. This transparent structure lets developers manage costs effectively and choose the level of performance they need.
OpenRouter
What Is OpenRouter
OpenRouter is a unified interface that grants developers access to a wide range of AI models—both open-source and commercial—through a single API. Rather than hosting models itself, OpenRouter routes requests to various providers, making it easier to explore multiple solutions without juggling separate integrations.
Why Should You Use OpenRouter?
OpenRouter practically covers every model on the market by serving as a proxy for providers like Fireworks and Together AI. This gives you the flexibility to switch between different LLMs based on your project's needs. Be aware, though, that the extra routing layer can lead to slightly higher latency compared to directly calling a single provider.
OpenRouter Models
Through OpenRouter, you can call nearly any large language model, including popular options from OpenAI, Anthropic, Fireworks, and Together AI. This wide selection helps developers address diverse use cases—from roleplaying to coding assistance—through a single, consistent interface.
OpenRouter Pricing
OpenRouter does not add extra usage fees beyond what each model provider charges. However, you'll incur a 5% fee when depositing funds due to Stripe's processing rules. This straightforward structure keeps cost management simple while allowing you to combine multiple LLM solutions in one place.
Together AI
What Is Together AI?
Together AI is a high-performance inference platform offering automated optimizations for over 200 open-source LLMs. It focuses on speed—often delivering sub-100ms latency—while handling crucial infrastructure tasks like token caching, load balancing, and model quantization. This lets developers concentrate on prompt engineering and application logic without worrying about the complexities of scaling or deployment.
Why Should You Use Together AI?
By offloading the heavy lifting of model infrastructure, Together AI streamlines your development process. Its proven ability to scale horizontally ensures consistent performance, even under heavy loads. Because it takes care of caching, optimization, and load balancing, you spend less time managing models and more time innovating.
Together AI Models
Together AI supports hundreds of open-source LLMs, similar to other platforms like Fireworks AI. Check out here: https://www.together.ai/models
Together AI Pricing
Check out here: https://www.together.ai/pricing
Groq
What Is Groq?
Groq is a high-speed inference platform built on LPU (Logical Processing Unit) technology. This architecture enables remarkably fast processing for AI models, making Groq an excellent option for applications that demand minimal latency.
Why Should You Use Groq?
If you're aiming for the fastest possible performance, Groq's LPU-powered infrastructure delivers. However, keep in mind that its stability may be slightly lower compared to other providers.
Groq Models and Pricing
Groq offers models like Llama and Mistral. For the latest details on available models and pricing, visit Groq's pricing page.
Hugging Face
What Is Hugging Face?
Hugging Face is an open-source platform for building, training, and deploying machine learning models. Often dubbed the "GitHub for AI," it hosts a thriving community and an extensive library of over 100,000 pre-trained models, including popular options like BERT and GPT.
Why Should You Use Hugging Face?
With its large model hub and support for various programming languages and cloud platforms, Hugging Face streamlines AI development. You can quickly find and integrate a model for your use case, though managing inference may require more hands-on setup compared to fully managed services.
Hugging Face Models
From language to image and beyond, Hugging Face offers a massive catalog of open-source models. Developers can browse, download, and customize them, making the platform a go-to resource for quick experimentation and prototyping.
Hugging Face Pricing
Hugging Face uses a pay-by-the-hour model for hosting on AWS or GCP infrastructure. You can review detailed pricing and deployment options on the Hugging Face pricing page.
Replicate
What Is Replicate?
Replicate is a cloud-based service that makes running and managing ML models straightforward—no in-depth machine learning knowledge or infrastructure setup required. You can either bring your own model or tap into the platform's large collection of open-source models published by the community.
Why Should You Use Replicate?
Replicate lets you quickly deploy and fine-tune models without worrying about hardware or complex configurations. Its user-friendly interface and extensive model library make it an appealing option for both newcomers and experienced developers.
Replicate Models
Thousands of publicly available ML models cover a variety of use cases. You can run these models directly or upload your own custom models to the Replicate cloud, paying only for the processing time used.
Replicate Pricing
Replicate operates on a pay-as-you-go structure based on runtime. Different models may have different costs depending on the hardware and time required. For the latest details, check out the Replicate pricing page.
Perplexity AI
What Is Perplexity AI?
Perplexity AI is best known for its intelligent search and Q&A capabilities. While it's primarily a consumer-facing service, developers can leverage Perplexity's new pplx-api to tap into real-time data through open-source language models. This makes Perplexity a strong option if your AI product needs up-to-the-minute information from the internet.
Why Should You Use Perplexity AI?
Its direct internet access sets Perplexity apart. If your app requires live data—whether it's breaking news or recent market trends—Perplexity's models can provide it seamlessly. This focus on real-time insights can give your projects a competitive edge.
Perplexity AI Models
Perplexity AI offers several Llama-based models with extended context lengths (up to 128k tokens), including:
- llama-3.1-sonar-small-128k-online (8B parameters)
- llama-3.1-sonar-large-128k-online (70B parameters)
- llama-3.1-sonar-huge-128k-online (405B parameters)
Perplexity AI Pricing
The current pricing is $5 per 1,000 requests across all models, with additional per-token costs ranging from $0.20 to $5 per million tokens, depending on model size. For detailed info, refer to the Perplexity AI documentation.
Hyperbolic
What Is HyperBolic?
HyperBolic is a platform that delivers AI inference services and affordable GPU compute for researchers, developers, and startups. It aims to lower costs and simplify access to the resources you need for building AI projects of any scale.
Why Should You Use HyperBolic?
If you want flexibility in choosing GPU power without paying premium prices, HyperBolic stands out. Its wide range of GPU options helps you match your hardware requirements precisely, giving you the performance you need at a fraction of the cost charged by larger cloud providers.
HyperBolic Pricing
HyperBolic charges by GPU usage, allowing you to control expenses based on your project's demands. For detailed pricing information, check out the HyperBolic pricing page.
Databricks
What Is Databricks?
Databricks is a unified analytics platform that enables data engineering, data science, and machine learning workloads at scale. In addition to handling big data workflows, Databricks offers its own large language model, DBRx, designed for enterprise-level AI solutions.
Why Should You Use Databricks?
If you already work with large datasets or run advanced analytics, Databricks seamlessly integrates with your existing data pipelines. Its built-in support for ML and AI projects—including the DBRx model—streamlines model development and deployment.
Databricks Models
Databricks provides access to DBRX, a high-performance LLM suited for enterprise settings. It can handle a variety of tasks, from natural language queries to advanced analytics, making it a flexible choice for data-driven organizations.
Databricks Pricing
Pricing varies based on workload, storage, and compute requirements. You can visit the Databricks website for more detailed information and custom pricing options.
Mistral
What Is Mistral?
Mistral AI is a French company specializing in open-source LLMs. It provides flexible deployment options—on-prem, VPC, or API—along with efficient model designs and seamless integrations for building customizable AI applications.
Why Should You Use Mistral?
Mistral stands out for its ability to handle complex reasoning tasks while remaining easy to deploy and cost-effective. Whether you need vision capabilities, code generation, or moderate content, Mistral covers a range of specialized models tailored for different use cases.
Mistral Models
- Mistral Large 24.11: Top-tier for high-complexity reasoning; 128k token window.
- Pixtral Large: Vision-capable for analyzing and understanding images.
- Mistral Small 24.09: A cost-efficient model for tasks like translation and summarization.
- Codestral: Specialized in code tasks; trained on 80+ languages.
- Ministral 8B & 3B: Edge-focused models with strong reasoning and function-calling abilities.
- Mistral Embed: Advanced text embedding solution for semantic search.
- Mistral Moderation 24.11: Text moderation with multiple policy support.
Mistral Pricing
Pricing varies by model, with costs split between input and output tokens. For instance, Mistral Large 24.11 is $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens, whereas smaller models like Ministral 3B cost just $0.04 for both input and output. For the latest details, check Mistral's documentation or pricing page.
Which LLM API Provider Is the Best?
It depends on your needs. If you want blazing speed, Groq or Fireworks AI might be the way to go. If real-time data access is a priority, Perplexity AI excels. Platforms like Mistral offer specialized models (e.g., code generation, image processing), while Hugging Face has a massive open-source community.
How Do I Choose the Right LLM Provider?
Start by listing your project's requirements—speed, cost, model variety, or real-time data. Compare each provider's strengths against your goals. For example, if you need cost-effective GPU power, consider HyperBolic. If you want a single interface for multiple providers, OpenRouter might be your best bet.
Can I Switch Between Providers Easily?
Yes. Many providers have APIs that share similar principles (prompt, get output). Providers like OpenRouter make switching even simpler by acting as a proxy for multiple services.
What About Pricing and Hidden Costs?
Each platform has unique pricing structures. Some (like Replicate) bill per usage, while others charge by GPU hours (HyperBolic). Make sure you review pricing pages and factor in any hidden or associated costs, such as deposit fees with OpenRouter or data storage fees on Databricks.
