Engineering leaders face a recurring architectural dilemma: when to retrieve context, when to fine-tune weights, when to leverage 2M+ context windows, and when to delegate to tools. This guide provides a deterministic decision matrix based on data velocity, latency, and cost.
Tradeoff Analysis
- RAG: Best for dynamic, rapidly updating data with strict citation requirements.
- Fine-Tuning: Best for teaching new styles, formats, and specialized vocabulary.
- Long Context: Best for comprehensive ad-hoc analysis over fixed document sets.
- Tool Use: Best for real-time calculations, transactions, and state changes.
