So for Opus... but trying out astra occationally as well, might join openai boat if it keeps on serving good results
Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
81–90 of 104 posts
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another happy DS41 user here. When I talk to friends with Claude subscriptions, they're not doing anything more complicated or better than I am, but are paying through their noses.
Do you use a 3rd party provider or use deepseek directly?
DeepSeek. Every now and again I get a notification that I'm running out of credits. That means I've got less than US$5. I usually wait another week or 2 and top up another 10.
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#83luna (max reasoning). price, as it sips quota on the Plus plan and is pretty competent for my needs. else I pretty much jump to Sol (high).
i find that luna can work through a 5hr quota window on a /goal without hitting 0%.
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#84Personally I'm using Qwen3.8-27B (MXFP4 quant W4A8) locally hosted on a pair of AMD GPUs (with DeepSeek Harness). It starts at 250 tokens/sec down to 120 past 128k context.
At work mostly Opus 4.8 (sometimes a GPT or Gemini 3.1 Pro). I find Opus 5 chatty/slower and Fable can venture into over-engineering itself into unnecessary complications.
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#85i use opus5 and when i run out of usage i swap api to deepseek flash 4.1, deepseek better than opus now i think
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#86[flagged]
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#87opus actually strong at anything but it wastes token like drinking milk
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I pay $200 month and literally have never a single time run out of usage, for Codex + Pro chat. It is better than DeepSeek and at least it supports a US company. Your pain isn’t important to me.
"Let them eat cake..." I'm glad that you have the luxury burn $200/mo. But that aside, it's not obvious to me that handing your pennies to an American company that is in cahoots with the American military, willing to self-censor at the direction of the American government, investing in large-scale raping of the planet to build new power plants data centers -- is better than handing your (20x fewer) pennies to a Chine…
I think most of us when you start typing stuff like that just roll our eyes and get on with our day.
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#89For work, Opus 4.8 because:
- I'm on the base Claude Team plan, so no Fable access
- Opus 5's outputs are wayyyy to verbose, to the point where I dread using it
- Opus 4.8 is intelligent enough for my needs and doesn't make me dread reading
Outside of work, I'm using Codex's free tier with 5.6 Luna-High. My personal/volunteer projects are simple enough that I don't need much more.
Re: Ask HN: What default model do you use and why?
#90Opus 5 at low effort is quite good at most tasks, and will go a long way even on the base plan. At higher thinking levels it is unbearably cautious and verbose - it drives me mad. I don’t have a use for Fable at current prices.
My current go-tos are DS Flash, Minimax M3 for subagents. Adding Muse Spark 1.3 to that mix but not convinced yet.