{"slug": "problems-with-local-llms", "title": "Problems with Local LLMs", "summary": "A developer's comparison found that generating complicated Rust functions on a local LLM took 30 to 60 minutes of 100% CPU and 100% GPU usage at an estimated electricity cost of $0.02 to $0.04, while the same generations on OpenRouter with Gemini 3.8 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash, or Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost about the same and usually finished within 2 minutes. The author concludes cloud-based AI is faster, cheaper, and higher quality for code generation, at the cost of data privacy and possible model refusals.", "body_md": "I am **optimistic** about the potential of running **large language models** on **local** systems. Local LLMs have many benefits, and I run them frequently, mostly for chat or information lookups.\n\nBut for more complex or difficult tasks, like generating **complicated Rust functions**, I feel that **cloud-based** LLMs are a **better deal**. In trying to generate code on my local PC, I was successful but it took up to 30 minutes or an hour of 100% CPU and 100% GPU work.\n\nI estimated my **cost** in **electricity** and it came out to about $0.02 to $0.04 for the generations. This might make sense in some cases, but running the same generations on **OpenRouter** with a modern Flash model (Gemini 3.8 Flash, GLM 5.3 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5.5) is about the **same price**, and usually finishes within **2 minutes**.\n\nSo **cloud-based AI** is both **faster**, **cheaper**, and also **higher quality** (based on a larger model). It does mean that your data is no longer \"private\" and if you are doing something questionable a model might refuse to generate text. There are drawbacks with both local and cloud, but often cloud is a better deal for code generation.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/problems-with-local-llms", "canonical_source": "https://www.dotnetperls.com/2026_10_3_problems-local-llms", "published_at": "2026-10-03 07:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-03 22:06:13.486632+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "ai-tools", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["OpenRouter", "Gemini 3.8 Flash", "GLM 5.3 Flash", "Claude Sonnet 5.5"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/problems-with-local-llms", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/problems-with-local-llms.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/problems-with-local-llms.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/problems-with-local-llms.jsonld"}}