What Llama is best at
- Privacy-critical work — nothing ever leaves your machine
- Builders fine-tuning a model for one specific job
- Running AI offline via Ollama and similar tools
Where it isn’t the answer
People who just want the best answer with zero setup — a hosted frontier model will beat your local box.
Plans & pricing
Open weightsFree to download and run under Meta’s license
Meta AIFree consumer assistant across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger
The story so far
- Feb 2023LLaMA leaks, accidentally igniting the open-model era
- Jul 2024Llama 3.1 405B — open weights go frontier-scale
- 2025–2026Llama 4 family; the default base for local and fine-tuned AI
Questions people actually ask
Is Llama really free?
The weights are free to download and use under Meta’s community license, including commercially for most companies.
How do I run Llama locally?
The easy path is Ollama: one install, one command, and a Llama model runs on your own machine — no account, no cloud.
Is Llama as good as ChatGPT?
The top Llama models are close on many tasks but generally a step behind the frontier. The trade is control and privacy for peak quality.