How to Choose the Right AI Model for Your Needs

KernelAI offers 42 different AI models. That's a lot of choice. But which one should you actually use? The answer depends on what you need and what device you have. This guide breaks it all down.

The Three Factors That Matter

When choosing an AI model, you're balancing three things:

🎯

Quality

How good are the responses? How well does it understand complex questions?

⚡

Speed

How fast does it generate responses? Can you use it in real-time?

💾

Storage

How much space does it take on your device? Will it fit?

Larger models are generally more capable but slower and require more storage. Smaller models are faster and lighter but less powerful. You need to find the sweet spot for your use case.

Choose by Use Case

Here's what we recommend based on what you want to do:

💬 General Chat & Questions

You want an everyday AI assistant for casual conversation, answering questions, writing emails, and brainstorming ideas.

Top Picks:

Qwen 3 0.6B - Fast, lightweight, great for quick questions (444 MB)
Llama 3.2 3B - Best balance of quality and speed (2 GB)
Phi-4 Mini - Excellent reasoning for its size (2.5 GB)

💻 Coding & Development

You need help writing code, debugging, refactoring, or understanding programming concepts.

Top Picks:

Qwen 2.5 Coder 3B - Excellent code generation (2.1 GB)
DeepSeek Coder 1.3B - Fast, 87 programming languages (870 MB)
DeepSeek Coder 6.7B - Professional-grade for complex tasks (4 GB)

👁️ Image Understanding & Vision

You want to analyze images, describe photos, extract text from documents, or answer questions about pictures.

Top Picks:

Qwen 3 VL 2B - Best vision model for phones (1.5 GB)
Qwen 3 VL 4B - More detailed image analysis (2.9 GB)
Llama 3.2 Vision 11B - Most capable, needs newer devices (7 GB)

🧠 Complex Reasoning & Analysis

You need help with logic problems, math, step-by-step analysis, or tasks that require careful thinking.

Top Picks:

DeepSeek R1 1.5B - Shows reasoning process (1 GB)
Phi-4 Mini - Outstanding reasoning ability (2.5 GB)
DeepSeek R1 7B - Advanced reasoning (4.4 GB)

🌍 Multilingual Support

You need AI that works well in languages other than English.

Top Picks:

Qwen 2.5 1.5B - Supports 29+ languages (1.1 GB)
Llama 3.3 1B - Improved multilingual support (890 MB)
Ministral 3B - Excellent multilingual capability (2.2 GB)

Choose by Device Storage

If you have limited storage on your iPhone, here's what you can run:

Under 500 MB

Ultra-compact: Gemma 3 270M, SmolLM2 135M, Qwen 2.5 0.5B

500 MB - 1 GB

Compact: Qwen 3 0.6B, Llama 3.2 1B, DeepSeek Coder 1.3B

1-3 GB

Balanced: Llama 3.2 3B, Phi-4, Qwen 2.5 Coder 3B, Gemma 2 2B

Over 3 GB

Large & capable: Llama 3.1 8B, DeepSeek R1 7B, Gemma 2 9B, Llama Vision 11B

Our Recommendation: Start Here

If you're not sure where to start, download these three models. They cover most use cases and you can always add more later:

1️⃣

Llama 3.2 3B

Your daily driver for general chat, writing, and questions. Great quality without being too large.

2 GB

2️⃣

Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B

For coding help. Small enough to keep alongside your main model.

1.1 GB

3️⃣

Qwen 3 VL 2B

For understanding images. The best vision model that runs smoothly on most devices.

1.5 GB

Total storage: ~5 GB. These three models will handle 95% of what you need from AI, all running privately on your device.

You Can Always Switch

The beauty of KernelAI is that you're not locked into one model. Download whatever you want, try them out, and delete the ones you don't like. All 42 models are free. Experiment and find what works best for you.

Ready to get started? Browse all 42 models and pick your favorites.

KernelAI offers 42 different AI models. That's a lot of choice. But which one should you actually use? The answer depends on what you need and what device you have. This guide breaks it all down.

The Three Factors That Matter

When choosing an AI model, you're balancing three things:

🎯

Quality

How good are the responses? How well does it understand complex questions?

⚡

Speed

How fast does it generate responses? Can you use it in real-time?

💾

Storage

How much space does it take on your device? Will it fit?

Larger models are generally more capable but slower and require more storage. Smaller models are faster and lighter but less powerful. You need to find the sweet spot for your use case.

Choose by Use Case

Here's what we recommend based on what you want to do:

💬 General Chat & Questions

You want an everyday AI assistant for casual conversation, answering questions, writing emails, and brainstorming ideas.

Top Picks:

Qwen 3 0.6B - Fast, lightweight, great for quick questions (444 MB)
Llama 3.2 3B - Best balance of quality and speed (2 GB)
Phi-4 Mini - Excellent reasoning for its size (2.5 GB)

💻 Coding & Development

You need help writing code, debugging, refactoring, or understanding programming concepts.

Top Picks:

Qwen 2.5 Coder 3B - Excellent code generation (2.1 GB)
DeepSeek Coder 1.3B - Fast, 87 programming languages (870 MB)
DeepSeek Coder 6.7B - Professional-grade for complex tasks (4 GB)

👁️ Image Understanding & Vision

You want to analyze images, describe photos, extract text from documents, or answer questions about pictures.

Top Picks:

Qwen 3 VL 2B - Best vision model for phones (1.5 GB)
Qwen 3 VL 4B - More detailed image analysis (2.9 GB)
Llama 3.2 Vision 11B - Most capable, needs newer devices (7 GB)

🧠 Complex Reasoning & Analysis

You need help with logic problems, math, step-by-step analysis, or tasks that require careful thinking.

Top Picks:

DeepSeek R1 1.5B - Shows reasoning process (1 GB)
Phi-4 Mini - Outstanding reasoning ability (2.5 GB)
DeepSeek R1 7B - Advanced reasoning (4.4 GB)

🌍 Multilingual Support

You need AI that works well in languages other than English.

Top Picks:

Qwen 2.5 1.5B - Supports 29+ languages (1.1 GB)
Llama 3.3 1B - Improved multilingual support (890 MB)
Ministral 3B - Excellent multilingual capability (2.2 GB)

Choose by Device Storage

If you have limited storage on your iPhone, here's what you can run:

Under 500 MB

Ultra-compact: Gemma 3 270M, SmolLM2 135M, Qwen 2.5 0.5B

500 MB - 1 GB

Compact: Qwen 3 0.6B, Llama 3.2 1B, DeepSeek Coder 1.3B

1-3 GB

Balanced: Llama 3.2 3B, Phi-4, Qwen 2.5 Coder 3B, Gemma 2 2B

Over 3 GB

Large & capable: Llama 3.1 8B, DeepSeek R1 7B, Gemma 2 9B, Llama Vision 11B

Our Recommendation: Start Here

If you're not sure where to start, download these three models. They cover most use cases and you can always add more later:

1️⃣

Llama 3.2 3B

Your daily driver for general chat, writing, and questions. Great quality without being too large.

2 GB

2️⃣

Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B

For coding help. Small enough to keep alongside your main model.

1.1 GB

3️⃣

Qwen 3 VL 2B

For understanding images. The best vision model that runs smoothly on most devices.

1.5 GB

Total storage: ~5 GB. These three models will handle 95% of what you need from AI, all running privately on your device.

You Can Always Switch

Ready to get started? Browse all 42 models and pick your favorites.

How to Choose the Right AI Model for Your Needs

The Three Factors That Matter

Quality

Speed

Storage

Choose by Use Case

💬 General Chat & Questions

💻 Coding & Development

👁️ Image Understanding & Vision

🧠 Complex Reasoning & Analysis

🌍 Multilingual Support

Choose by Device Storage

Our Recommendation: Start Here

Llama 3.2 3B

Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B

Qwen 3 VL 2B

You Can Always Switch

Explore All 42 Models

How to Choose the Right AI Model for Your Needs

The Three Factors That Matter

Quality

Speed

Storage

Choose by Use Case

💬 General Chat & Questions

💻 Coding & Development

👁️ Image Understanding & Vision

🧠 Complex Reasoning & Analysis

🌍 Multilingual Support

Choose by Device Storage

Our Recommendation: Start Here

Llama 3.2 3B

Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B

Qwen 3 VL 2B

You Can Always Switch

Explore All 42 Models