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Start here

If you do not want to think too hard about model choice:
  • Start with qwen-3.6-plus for the best default across general work, coding, and reasoning.
  • Switch to kimi-k2.6 if your workflow looks like an agent with tools, long sessions, or screenshots.
  • Switch to deepseek-v4-pro if you need top reasoning with 1M context.
  • Switch to deepseek-v4-flash if you want V4-tier behavior at the lowest price.
  • Switch to gemini-2.5-flash if context length is the main problem.

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Quick picks

These are decision shortcuts, not absolute rankings. If your workload changes, your best model changes too.

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Choose by constraint

Pick qwen-3.6-plus.Use it when you want one model that is strong at general work, coding, reasoning, and multilingual tasks without forcing a lot of tradeoff thinking.
Pick deepseek-v4-flash.It is the best first stop when you want strong quality at lower cost — 1M context, native reasoning, MIT license. If you need an even cheaper lane for routine workloads, look at gpt-oss-120b or glm-4.5-air. If you have a stable production workload already on deepseek-v3, it stays available.
Pick deepseek-v4-pro.It is the V4 flagship — 1.6T MoE, 1M context, native reasoning. Best fit for complex coding, multi-step analysis, and research-grade work where quality wins over latency.
Pick deepseek-r1.Use it for difficult analysis, logic, math, and multi-step planning where you want a slower, deeper chain-of-thought trace. If it feels too slow, fall back to deepseek-v4-pro or qwen-3.6-plus.
Start with kimi-k2.6.It is the best first pick when your workload uses tools, screenshots, or long multi-step sessions. If you want a text-only engineering alternative for repo-scale work, try glm-5.1.
Start with glm-5.1.It is the better fit when the work is repo-scale, multi-file, and long-horizon. If your agent is more typical day-to-day coding than sustained engineering execution, fall back to minimax-m2.5.
Start with minimax-m2.5.It fits engineering workflows well for normal coding-agent usage. If you want a newer productivity-oriented variant, try minimax-m2.7. If you want a stronger long-horizon engineering model, move up to glm-5.1.
Pick qwen-3-32b.It is the best fit for tight edit-run-debug loops. If you want a more code-specialized model with more context, try qwen-3-coder.
Pick gemini-2.5-flash for the safest long-context default.If you want a newer preview path, use gemini-3-flash. If you want cheaper long-context throughput without needing multimodal input, look at glm-4.7-flash.
Start with gemma-4-31b.It is the cheapest strong multimodal option. If you also need stronger agent behavior, upgrade to kimi-k2.6.
Start with glm-4.5-air.It is the cheaper agentic lane for repeated automation tasks. If the workload is more about long context and throughput than agent behavior, try glm-4.7-flash.
Start with sonar (alias search).It runs a real-time web search on every request and returns a current answer with citations — no search + scrape + RAG pipeline to build. For complex, multi-step research and longer cited reports, move up to sonar-pro. Note both bill a small flat web-search fee on top of tokens, and neither supports tool calling — the search happens internally.

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Tradeoffs that matter

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Use by task

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Still not sure?

  • Use alias best for qwen-3.6-plus
  • Use alias agent for kimi-k2.6
  • Use alias reasoning for deepseek-r1
  • Use alias long-context for gemini-2.5-flash
See model aliases and all models for the canonical live catalog.