The Gen AI Ecosystem
A comprehensive guide to the tools, platforms, and services that make building with generative AI easier and more accessible.
🤖 LLM Platforms
OpenAI
Models: GPT-4, GPT-3.5, DALL-E, Whisper
Best for: Production applications
Pricing: Pay-per-token
platform.openai.comAnthropic Claude
Models: Claude 3 (Opus, Sonnet, Haiku)
Best for: Long context, safety
Pricing: Competitive with GPT-4
console.anthropic.comGoogle Gemini
Models: Gemini Ultra, Pro, Nano
Best for: Multimodal tasks
Pricing: Free tier available
ai.google.devHugging Face
Models: 500k+ open-source models
Best for: Experimentation, fine-tuning
Pricing: Free + paid hosting
huggingface.coCohere
Models: Command, Embed, Rerank
Best for: Enterprise, embeddings
Pricing: Free trial + usage-based
cohere.aiTogether AI
Models: Llama 2, Mistral, custom
Best for: Open-source models
Pricing: Cheaper than OpenAI
together.ai🎨 Image Generation
Midjourney
Discord-based, photorealistic, artistic
- $10/mo for 200 images
- Best artistic quality
- Community features
Stability AI (Stable Diffusion)
Open-source, customizable, self-hostable
- Free (self-host) or API
- Full control and fine-tuning
- Active community
DALL-E 3 (OpenAI)
Integrated with ChatGPT, prompt adherence
- $0.04 per 1024×1024 image
- Best text rendering
- Safety filters
Leonardo AI
Game assets, consistent characters
- Free tier: 150 tokens/day
- Canvas editor
- Model training
🗄️ Vector Databases
| Platform | Type | Best For | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pinecone | Managed | Production RAG | Free → $70/mo |
| Weaviate | Open/Managed | Hybrid search | Free → Enterprise |
| Chroma | Open-source | Prototyping | Free |
| Qdrant | Open/Cloud | Performance | Free → Enterprise |
| Milvus | Open-source | Large scale | Free |
🔧 Development Frameworks
LangChain
pip install langchain openai
# Build LLM apps with chains, agents, memory
from langchain.chains import LLMChain
from langchain.chat_models import ChatOpenAI
llm = ChatOpenAI()
chain = LLMChain(llm=llm, prompt=prompt_template)LlamaIndex
pip install llama-index
# Data framework for LLM applications
from llama_index import VectorStoreIndex, SimpleDirectoryReader
documents = SimpleDirectoryReader('data').load_data()
index = VectorStoreIndex.from_documents(documents)
query_engine = index.as_query_engine()Haystack
pip install farm-haystack
# NLP framework for search and QA
from haystack import Pipeline
from haystack.nodes import BM25Retriever
pipeline = Pipeline()
# Build custom RAG pipelines🖥️ Development Environments
Google Colab
Free Jupyter notebooks with GPU
- Free T4 GPU
- Pre-installed libraries
- Easy sharing
Replit
Browser-based coding with AI
- Instant deployment
- Collaborative
- AI coding assistant
Hugging Face Spaces
Deploy ML demos for free
- Gradio/Streamlit
- Auto-deploy from Git
- Free hosting
Paperspace
Cloud GPUs for ML
- A100, H100 available
- Jupyter notebooks
- $8/hr for A100
🎙️ Audio & Video
- ElevenLabs: Realistic text-to-speech ($5/mo for 30k chars)
- Whisper (OpenAI): Speech-to-text API ($0.006/min)
- Runway ML: Video generation and editing ($12/mo)
- Descript: AI-powered video editing ($12/mo)
- Synthesia: AI avatars for video ($22/mo)
📊 Monitoring & Observability
LangSmith
Debug and monitor LLM apps
- Trace chains
- Evaluate outputs
- Cost tracking
Weights & Biases
ML experiment tracking
- Model training
- Hyperparameter tuning
- Team collaboration
Helicone
LLM observability platform
- Request logging
- Cost analysis
- Caching
💡 No-Code / Low-Code Tools
- Bubble: Build web apps with AI plugins
- Zapier: Automate workflows with AI (ChatGPT integration)
- Make (Integromat): Visual automation with LLMs
- Flowise: Drag-and-drop LLM flows
- LangFlow: Visual LangChain builder
📚 Learning Resources
Courses
- DeepLearning.AI: Free courses on LLMs, LangChain, prompt engineering
- Fast.ai: Practical deep learning for coders
- Hugging Face Course: Transformers and NLP
Communities
- r/LocalLLaMA: Open-source LLM community
- Hugging Face Forums: Technical discussions
- LangChain Discord: Framework support
🎯 Choosing the Right Tools
For Prototyping:
OpenAI API + LangChain + Chroma + Google Colab
For Production:
Claude/GPT-4 + Pinecone + LangSmith + Cloud deployment
For Learning:
Hugging Face + Local models + Free tier APIs
For No-Code:
Zapier + Make + Flowise
🎯 Key Takeaways
- OpenAI & Anthropic lead in production LLMs
- Hugging Face is essential for open-source models
- LangChain simplifies LLM app development
- Vector DBs power RAG applications
- Free tiers available for experimentation
- Right tool depends on your use case and budget