How to choose an LLM API? Developers weigh cost, speed, and reliability

Puzzleheaded-Fig1589 · reddit · 2026-08-17

A developer discusses criteria for selecting an LLM API for new projects, noting a shift from focusing solely on intelligence to balancing cost, speed, reliability, and quality. Key evaluation factors listed include token pricing, latency, context window, coding performance, structured output/tool calling, rate limits, reliability, API compatibility, and total cost at scale. The post seeks insights into how practitioners benchmark models and what drives provider switches in production.

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