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For efficient ChatGPT alternatives to run on Hugging Face Spaces with API input/output support, the following models can work well on the free tier:

  1. GPT-Neo (EleutherAI):

    • Model: GPT-Neo 1.3B or 2.7B
    • Efficiency: Smaller versions like 1.3B can run on the free tier.
    • Why: Provides OpenAI GPT-like performance at lower computational cost.
  2. OPT (Meta):

    • Model: OPT-1.3B or 350M
    • Efficiency: Efficiently uses memory, lower-end models work on the free tier.
    • Why: Comparable to GPT-3, with Hugging Face Spaces integration.
  3. DistilGPT-2 (Hugging Face):

    • Model: DistilGPT-2
    • Efficiency: Lighter and faster than full GPT-2, ideal for free-tier.
    • Why: Reduced size for faster inference, still good quality.
  4. T5 (Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer):

    • Model: T5-Base or DistilT5
    • Efficiency: Versatile and efficient for input/output text tasks.
    • Why: Runs well on lower resources.