Tools and Vendors

The landscape, framed categorically so the pages age gracefully. This folder tells you how to reason about a tool, not which one to pick today.

Planned topics

• Open weights vs closed APIs vs open source — what each actually lets you do.
• Service tiers — infrastructure vs workflow vs full-service, and how to tell which layer you’re on.
• Local vs cloud — privacy, cost, control, ceiling trade-offs.
• Hardware realities — GPU/VRAM, Mac vs PC, minimum viable rig.
• Cloud compute — Colab, RunPod, Modal, Replicate, Fal as categories.
• Interfaces — ComfyUI, A1111, Forge, Invoke; node-based vs prompt-first.
• Cloud video tools — Runway, Kling, Sora, Luma, Pika, Higgsfield framed categorically.
• Model zoos — Hugging Face, Civitai; reading a model card; spotting dubious uploads.