GPT-4o from OpenAI is the top recommended large language model due to its performance, cost-effectiveness, and features including multimodality. GPT-3.5 Turbo is a close second for its high-quality chat interface and free tier options. CodeQwen-1.5 is an excellent choice for code understanding and completion tasks. Mistral 7B Instruct v0.3 is ideal for fine-tuning models for commercial or research purposes due to its permissive license and community support. Llama 3 70B offers high-quality performance as a self-hosted model, while Llama 3 8B provides an excellent balance of performance and hosting requirements for hobby projects. Gorilla OpenFunctions-v2 is the top choice for self-hosted models with tool use and function calling capabilities. These models are highly recommended based on their unique strengths and use cases.