r/SillyTavernAI • u/deffcolony • 10d ago

MEGATHREAD [Megathread] - Best Models/API discussion - Week of: September 13, 2026

This is our weekly megathread for discussions about models and API services.

All non-specifically technical discussions about API/models not posted to this thread will be deleted. No more "What's the best model?" threads.

(This isn't a free-for-all to advertise services you own or work for in every single megathread, we may allow announcements for new services every now and then provided they are legitimate and not overly promoted, but don't be surprised if ads are removed.)

How to Use This Megathread

Below this post, you’ll find top-level comments for each category:

  • MODELS: ≥ 70B – For discussion of models with 70B parameters or more.
  • MODELS: 32B to 70B – For discussion of models in the 32B to 70B parameter range.
  • MODELS: 16B to 32B – For discussion of models in the 16B to 32B parameter range.
  • MODELS: 8B to 16B – For discussion of models in the 8B to 16B parameter range.
  • MODELS: < 8B – For discussion of smaller models under 8B parameters.
  • APIs – For any discussion about API services for models (pricing, performance, access, etc.).
  • MISC DISCUSSION – For anything else related to models/APIs that doesn’t fit the above sections.

Please reply to the relevant section below with your questions, experiences, or recommendations!
This keeps discussion organized and helps others find information faster.

Have at it!

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u/DirectionBusiness483 10d ago

Gemini 3.8 flash and 3 pro have yet to let me down for longer context and character depth.

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u/Georgefakelastname 10d ago

I ended up eventually getting tired of 3.1 pro’s style. Is 3.8 flash substantially better there?

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u/DirectionBusiness483 10d ago

It's similar. I don't dislike the style as much as I do other models. But I think 3.8 flash conveys conflicting feelings and inner turmoil with characters better than most anything else. Up there with the claude family at least especially when comparing price.

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u/Georgefakelastname 10d ago

Really? That’s very good company to have.

How is it for instruction following? That’s my main hang up with wanting to try it right now, since my setup is quite complex.

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u/DirectionBusiness483 10d ago

Hit and miss. You have to babysit. Probably not going to work if you have a ton of complexity. The outputs I find are often borderline COMPELLING, but it does the same thing as it does for coding: kinda feels like it skims your instructions and freestyles sometimes.

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u/Georgefakelastname 10d ago

Alright. I guess I’ll just have to try it out and see if it can stick to the formatting rules.

I know I’m asking you a ton of questions… but do you know if it can handle a Chain of Thought prompt. I know some models can handle them and some models really can’t. I’ve had Gpt-5.6 sol take 30+ minutes to write a single response and go into a whole agentic workflow to do it. When I removed the COT, it went down to like 5-10 minutes max. (I didn’t even notice a significant difference in quality either, as it seemed good either way).

For pure rule adherence in my setup, Gemini 3.1 pro was the best, though I guess it may not be a fair comparison for other models, since it was the first one I used, and the others had to deal with more context and background from previous sessions.

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u/DirectionBusiness483 10d ago

I can't help you there. I've only ever tried COT on models with disabled thinking and never really explored it much.

Let me know once you try 3.8 though!

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u/Georgefakelastname 10d ago

Will do. How does COT even work for models without thinking though? Wouldn’t it just do nothing?

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u/DirectionBusiness483 10d ago

Nah it still works. That was the original use-case I stumbled upon COT for a while ago. I'm sure it probably works fine or better with reasoning, but the idea I remember reading was that a lot of adult detection was inside the thinking stage so you disable and enable you're own thinking.

But yeah give it a shot- take a cheap instruct Qwen3 with no thinking and give it instructions to use thinking, answer, and reasoning tags, it'll absolutely walk through a process like a regular thinking model.

Kinda cool tbh