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Guide· 6 min read

Twelve providers, zero lock-in: choosing the right model per task

A practical guide to routing work across Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek and more — and why a multi-provider editor beats betting on one model.

No single model is best at everything, and the frontier reshuffles every few months. A multi-provider editor lets you pick the right tool for each task today and adopt the next breakthrough the day it ships.

A rough routing cheat-sheet

  • Deep refactors and reasoning: Claude — the default coding brain.
  • Huge files and multimodal input: Gemini's large context windows.
  • Cheap, high-volume edits: DeepSeek or open models via Together.
  • Web-grounded answers with citations: Perplexity.
  • Lowest latency autocomplete: Groq or Cerebras.

Why lock-in is the real cost

Single-vendor editors quietly bet your workflow on one company's pricing and roadmap. When that model falls behind, you are stuck. Obsydian Lab keeps switching cost near zero — change the provider in a dropdown, keep your context, keep working.

And when you want raw, metered-free usage, BYOK puts you directly on your own provider account at cost.

Try Obsydian Lab free

12+ AI providers, included intelligence, and a full IDE — yours to keep on your machine. 14-day trial, no card.

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