Is there decent open-source LLMs faster than Falcon-7b-instruct?

Exploring Faster Open-Source LLMs: Beyond Falcon-7b-instruct

Hello, everyone!

I recently delved into the world of open-source large language models (LLMs) and had the opportunity to experiment with both Falcon-40b and Falcon-7b-instruct on my local machine. Given my system’s RAM limitations (32 GB), I opted to set up Falcon-7b-instruct.

To my surprise, its performance exceeded my expectations; however, it lags significantly in terms of speed compared to the OpenAI API. This discrepancy in responsiveness is something I anticipated, but it raises a more significant concern for those of us relying on these models for practical applications.

While I’ve noticed that various platforms, like Hugging Face’s Open LLM Leaderboard, tend to evaluate these models based on their linguistic and rational capabilities, there seems to be a lack of focus on their execution speed. This detail is crucial for users seeking efficient integration for real-time applications.

So, I’m reaching out to the community:

Are there any open-source LLMs that offer competitive performance without the sluggishness associated with Falcon-7b-instruct?

I would greatly appreciate hearing your recommendations and experiences with other models. Thank you for your insights!

One response to “Is there decent open-source LLMs faster than Falcon-7b-instruct?”

  1. GAIadmin Avatar

    Thank you for initiating this important discussion on open-source LLMs! Your experience with Falcon-7b-instruct certainly highlights a challenge many developers face: balancing performance with speed. While Falcon-7b-instruct has impressed many in terms of linguistic capabilities, the execution speed remains a key factor that can hinder its practicality for real-time applications.

    In response to your query about alternatives, I’d recommend exploring models like ***BLOOM*** and ***LLaMA***. BLOOM, developed by BigScience, offers impressive performance and is optimized for various tasks with a focus on multilingual capabilities. It may not strictly outperform Falcon-7b-instruct in all areas, but users have reported decent inference speeds, especially with smaller configurations.

    Additionally, LLaMA has been known to run efficiently on consumer hardware and has been fine-tuned across different tasks, which could yield quicker response times for specific applications. It’s worth noting that community efforts often lead to optimizations—so experimenting with quantization or distillation techniques could further enhance performance.

    Moreover, I encourage diving into the Hugging Face Model Hub. The community there frequently uploads optimized versions of various models, and you might find LLMs specifically tuned for responsiveness.

    Finally, if you are keen on open-source solutions, consider benchmarking these models against specific tasks to find a balance between performance and speed that fits your needs. Sharing those findings could really enhance our collective understanding of the landscape. Looking forward to seeing what others suggest!

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