Providers & ecosystem · 1 min read · Updated 2026-10-05
LLM providers: who builds the models
Companies that make their own models
OpenAI makes GPT and ChatGPT. Anthropic makes Claude. Google makes Gemini. xAI makes Grok. Each has a chat app for everyone and a paid service for developers.
Models you can download
Meta's Llama, Mistral, Alibaba's Qwen, DeepSeek and Google's Gemma share their model files. You can run them on your own computers.
Cloud companies
Amazon Bedrock, Microsoft Azure and Google Vertex AI offer models from several makers in one place, which is handy for businesses.
How to choose
Try a few on your own task. Compare quality, price, speed, memory size and how they treat your data. Models and prices change often, so check each company's own page.
Key takeaways
- A few companies build most top chatbots.
- Some models can be downloaded and run yourself.
- Choose by testing on your own task, then compare price and privacy.
Quick questions
Which is best?
It depends on the job. Rankings change often, so test with your own examples.
What is an API?
A way for software to send questions to an AI and get answers back. Usually billed per token.
Must I pick just one?
No. Many teams use several.