Best picks
Ranked picks for the jobs people actually hire models for — each with a verdict, current pricing and the trade-offs that matter. Updated as the field moves.
The best AI image generators ranked by what you're actually making: Midjourney v8.1 for pure art, Nano Banana 2 free at 4K, FLUX.2 for open weights, Ideogram for typography — with pricing and the trade-offs that decide it.
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The best AI video generators ranked: Seedance 2.0 tops both Arena leaderboards at a fraction of Veo's price, Veo 3.1 for one-pass cinematic audio, PixVerse V6 free, Hailuo 2.3 for volume — with per-second pricing throughout.
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The best LLMs for building AI agents, ranked by job: Claude Sonnet 5 for production fleets, Fable 5 for days-long autonomy, GPT-5.5 for terminal agents, GLM-5.2 for self-hosting — with pricing and failure-mode notes.
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The best LLMs for coding, ranked from benchmark data and real pricing: Claude Fable 5 leads on raw capability, Sonnet 5 on value, GLM-5.2 among open weights — with the trade-offs that actually decide the choice.
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