The AI landscape is evolving at breakneck speed. With new models launching monthly and existing ones getting major upgrades, choosing the right LLM for your specific needs has become both more critical and more complex than ever.
Whether you're building the next unicorn startup, automating enterprise workflows, or just trying to boost your team's productivity, understanding which models excel at what tasks can make the difference between success and expensive failure.
Today, we're diving deep into the top 25 models you can route through Requesty's unified LLM gateway, with special focus on the heavy hitters: Claude 4, GPT-4o, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 3. We'll explore their unique strengths, ideal use cases, and how smart routing between them can save you up to 80% on costs while improving performance.
The Big Four: Today's LLM Powerhouses
Let's start with the models that are dominating benchmarks and real-world applications in 2025.
Claude 4 (Sonnet/Opus): The Code Whisperer
Claude 4 has emerged as the developer's best friend. With its 200K token context window and unmatched code quality, it's become the go-to choice for complex programming tasks.
Key Strengths:
Industry-leading 72.7% on SWE-bench coding benchmarks
Superior reasoning and consistency for technical documentation
Built-in Constitutional AI for enhanced safety and reliability
Exceptional at maintaining context across long conversations
Best For:
Complex codebases and architectural decisions
Technical documentation and API design
Tasks requiring deep reasoning and consistency
Regulated industries needing safety-first approaches
Pricing: $3 input/$15 output per million tokens (Sonnet variant)
Through Requesty's smart routing, you can automatically route coding tasks to Claude 4 while sending general queries to more cost-effective models, optimizing both quality and spend.
GPT-4o: The Swiss Army Knife
OpenAI's GPT-4o remains the most versatile model available, topping the LMSYS ELO leaderboard with its combination of speed, precision, and multimodal capabilities.
Key Strengths:
Fastest latency among top-tier models
Full multimodal support (text, images, audio, video)
86.2% precision in classification tasks
Massive ecosystem of plugins and integrations
Best For:
General-purpose tasks and creative writing
Multimodal applications requiring image/audio processing
Customer support and conversational AI
Rapid prototyping and experimentation
Pricing: $5 input/$20 output per million tokens
With Requesty's fallback policies, you can use GPT-4o as your primary model with automatic failover to alternatives during outages or rate limits.
Gemini 2.5 Pro: The Context Champion
Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro has redefined what's possible with context windows, offering up to 2 million tokens—that's roughly 1.5 million words or 3,000 pages of text.
Key Strengths:
Industry-leading 2M token context window
Most cost-effective among premium models
Seamless Google Workspace integration
Excellent for document analysis and summarization
Best For:
Research and academic analysis
Processing entire codebases or documentation sets
Long-form content generation
Enterprise document workflows
Pricing: $1.25-$2.50 input/$10-$15 output per million tokens
Requesty's caching features are particularly powerful with Gemini 2.5 Pro, allowing you to cache responses from large document analyses and save significantly on repeated queries.
Grok 3: The Real-Time Trendsetter
X's Grok 3 brings something unique to the table: real-time access to social media data and trending information.
Key Strengths:
Direct access to X (Twitter) data stream
Real-time trend detection and analysis
Engaging personality and conversational style
Strong performance on current events
Best For:
Social media monitoring and analysis
Real-time news and trend tracking
Marketing campaign optimization
Content creation around trending topics
Pricing: $16/month with X Premium subscription
Through Requesty, you can combine Grok's real-time insights with other models' analytical capabilities, creating powerful hybrid workflows.
The Next 21: Specialized Models for Every Need
Beyond the big four, Requesty provides access to 160+ models, each with unique strengths. Here are the standouts:
Coding Specialists
5. DeepSeek R1
Exceptional at mathematical reasoning and code optimization
91.6% on graduate-level math benchmarks
Ideal for algorithm design and optimization tasks
6. Code Llama 70B
Meta's dedicated coding model
Excellent for code completion and refactoring
Strong performance on multiple programming languages
7. Qwen 2.5 Coder
Specialized in Python and data science workflows
Great for ML/AI code generation
Cost-effective for high-volume coding tasks
Creative Powerhouses
8. Claude 3.5 Haiku
Lightning-fast creative writing
Perfect for high-volume content generation
Maintains Claude's safety and consistency
9. Mistral Large
European alternative with strong multilingual support
Excellent for creative writing in multiple languages
GDPR-compliant hosting options
10. Yi-Large
Specialized in Asian languages
Strong creative writing capabilities
Excellent cultural context understanding
Research and Analysis
11. Perplexity Online
Real-time web search integration
Automatic citation and source verification
Perfect for fact-checking and research
12. Command R+
Cohere's flagship model for enterprise search
Excellent retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
Strong performance on domain-specific tasks
13. Mixtral 8x22B
Open-source powerhouse
Excellent for research and analysis
Can be self-hosted for sensitive data
Specialized Applications
14. Stable Diffusion XL (via API)
Text-to-image generation
Excellent for creative projects
Can be combined with text models for multimodal workflows
15. Whisper Large V3
State-of-the-art speech recognition
Supports 100+ languages
Perfect for transcription workflows
16. DALL-E 3
Advanced image generation
Seamless integration with GPT models
Ideal for creative and marketing teams
Cost-Effective Alternatives
17. Llama 3.1 405B
Meta's open-source giant
Comparable performance to GPT-4 at lower cost
Self-hosting options available
18. Solar 10.7B
Extremely cost-effective
Good performance for basic tasks
Ideal for high-volume, simple queries
19. Phi-3 Medium
Microsoft's efficient small model
Runs on edge devices
Perfect for privacy-sensitive applications
Emerging Stars
20. Gemma 2 27B
Google's open-source offering
Excellent performance-to-size ratio
Strong multilingual capabilities
21. Aya 23
Specialized in 23 languages
Excellent for global applications
Strong cultural understanding
22. Jamba 1.5 Large
Hybrid architecture for efficiency
Long context window (256K tokens)
Good balance of performance and cost
23. Arctic
Snowflake's enterprise-focused model
Excellent for SQL and data analysis
Strong integration with data platforms
24. Granite 34B
IBM's enterprise model
Specialized in business applications
Strong compliance and governance features
25. Nemotron 70B
NVIDIA's latest offering
Optimized for GPU inference
Excellent for real-time applications
Choosing the Right Model: A Practical Framework
With so many options, how do you choose? Here's a practical framework used by teams saving 80% on their AI costs with Requesty's smart routing:
Match Model to Task
Different models excel at different tasks. Here's a quick reference guide:
For Coding:
Complex algorithms: Claude 4 or DeepSeek R1
Quick scripts: Code Llama or Qwen 2.5 Coder
Code reviews: GPT-4o or Claude 4
For Content Creation:
Blog posts: GPT-4o or Claude 3.5 Haiku
Technical writing: Claude 4
Creative fiction: Mistral Large or GPT-4o
For Research:
Academic papers: Gemini 2.5 Pro
Real-time data: Perplexity or Grok 3
Market analysis: Command R+ or Gemini 2.5 Pro
For Business Applications:
Customer support: GPT-4o with fallback to Llama 3.1
Data analysis: Arctic or Granite 34B
Document processing: Gemini 2.5 Pro
Consider Your Constraints
Budget Constraints: If cost is critical, use Requesty's routing optimizations to automatically route simple queries to cost-effective models like Solar 10.7B while reserving premium models for complex tasks.
Latency Requirements: For real-time applications, prioritize models like GPT-4o or Nemotron 70B. Requesty's load balancing ensures consistent performance even during peak times.
Compliance Needs: For regulated industries, models like Claude 4 (with Constitutional AI) or Granite 34B (with enterprise governance) are ideal. Requesty's security features add an extra layer of protection with built-in guardrails.
Implement Smart Routing
The real power comes from using multiple models intelligently. Here's how top teams structure their routing:
Primary-Fallback Chain:
Primary: GPT-4o for general tasks
Fallback 1: Claude 4 for complex reasoning
Fallback 2: Llama 3.1 for cost optimization
Task-Based Routing:
Code tasks → Claude 4 or DeepSeek R1
Creative writing → GPT-4o or Mistral Large
Data analysis → Gemini 2.5 Pro or Arctic
Real-time queries → Grok 3 or Perplexity
Cost-Optimized Routing:
Simple queries → Solar 10.7B or Phi-3
Medium complexity → Llama 3.1 or Mixtral
High complexity → Claude 4 or GPT-4o
Real-World Implementation Examples
Let's look at how companies are using multi-model strategies with Requesty:
E-commerce Giant: 175% Traffic Boost
A major retailer needed to generate 10,000 unique product descriptions. Their approach:
Used Gemini 2.5 Pro to analyze competitor descriptions and extract patterns
Routed creative writing to GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Haiku
Implemented Grok 3 for trending keyword integration
Added Perplexity for fact-checking technical specifications
Result: Generated all descriptions in 2 weeks at 20% of the manual cost, with 175% increase in organic traffic.
SaaS Startup: 80% Cost Reduction
A fast-growing SaaS company optimized their AI spend:
Routed simple support queries to Solar 10.7B
Used GPT-4o for complex technical questions
Implemented Claude 4 for code generation tasks
Added automatic caching for repeated queries
Result: Maintained quality while reducing costs by 80% using Requesty's smart routing and caching.
Research Institution: 10x Productivity
An academic research team revolutionized their workflow:
Used Gemini 2.5 Pro to process entire research databases
Implemented Perplexity for real-time citation checking
Added Claude 4 for writing assistance
Created custom routing rules for different research phases
Result: Increased research output by 10x while maintaining academic rigor.
Future-Proofing Your AI Strategy
The AI landscape changes rapidly. Here's how to stay ahead:
Avoid Vendor Lock-in
Using Requesty's unified API, you can switch between models without changing your code. This flexibility is crucial as new models emerge and existing ones evolve.
Monitor Performance Metrics
Track key metrics across models:
Response quality scores
Latency and availability
Cost per successful query
Task completion rates
Requesty's analytics dashboard provides real-time insights into model performance, helping you optimize your routing rules continuously.
Prepare for What's Next
Coming in 2025:
Claude 4.5: Enhanced multimodal capabilities
GPT-5: Rumored AGI-level reasoning
Gemini 3.0: Quantum computing integration
Grok 4: Advanced predictive analytics
With Requesty, you'll have immediate access to these models as they launch, without any integration work.
Getting Started with Multi-Model AI
Ready to harness the power of 160+ models? Here's your action plan:
1. Start with the Free Tier: Sign up for Requesty and experiment with different models to understand their strengths.
2. Implement Smart Routing: Use Requesty's smart routing to automatically select the best model for each task.
3. Add Fallback Policies: Configure automatic failover to ensure reliability.
4. Enable Caching: Reduce costs by up to 80% with intelligent caching.
5. Monitor and Optimize: Use analytics to continuously improve your routing rules and model selection.
Conclusion: The Multi-Model Advantage
The era of relying on a single AI model is over. Today's most successful teams use multiple models strategically, matching each task to the model that performs best while optimizing for cost and latency.
With Claude 4's coding prowess, GPT-4o's versatility, Gemini 2.5 Pro's massive context window, and Grok 3's real-time insights—plus 21 other specialized models—you have an unprecedented toolkit at your disposal.
The key is intelligent orchestration. That's where Requesty comes in, providing the routing, optimization, and security infrastructure that makes multi-model AI not just possible, but practical and cost-effective.
Whether you're building the next big thing or optimizing existing workflows, the combination of these 25 models with smart routing can transform your AI capabilities. The future belongs to those who can leverage the unique strengths of each model while managing complexity and costs.
Ready to route smarter, not harder? Start your free trial with Requesty today and join the 15,000+ developers already saving up to 80% on their AI costs while improving performance. The best model for your task is just an API call away.