LLM Selection

Last update: September 27, 2026

The first step is to choose which LLM provider you’re going to use. I’m using Claude. You can choose whatever you want, but the guide that follows will be written using Claude. Can you do the same thing with the other LLMs (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc)? Yes, absolutely, but there may be some small differences in how you set things up.

Now… don’t get discouraged but this isn’t entirely free. You’ll need access to Claude Code, which isn’t available with the free version. If your company has the Enterprise subscription, or your school has Claude for Education, you might be in the clear. Otherwise, you’ll need to take a look at some of the options for purchase. The Pro version costs $20/month and unlocks Claude Code.

Remember… if your company or your school or you already have access to another LLM provider, you should be able to use that! You can use ChatGPT, for example, to do pretty much everything I’m doing in Claude. (But again, I can’t speak to which tier you’d need for other providers.)

Claude subscription tiers

Once you’ve got your LLM selected, the next step will be to get this all plugged in. Head on over to the next post in the guide to learn about that.

Step 2: Set up your IDE

IDE Selection