--- title: ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Use? description: Spring AI provides two APIs for interacting with LLMs: ChatClient and ChatModel. ChatClient is the high-level fluent API recommended for most use cases — it... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/chatclient-vs-chatmodel-which-spring-ai-api-should-you-use--69qrj11xy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Use? | daily.dev og:description: Spring AI provides two APIs for interacting with LLMs: ChatClient and ChatModel. ChatClient is the high-level fluent API recommended for most use cases — it... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/chatclient-vs-chatmodel-which-spring-ai-api-should-you-use--69qrj11xy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/69qRJ11xY.png og:image:alt: ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Use? og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Use? **[Dan Vega](https://daily.dev/sources/dan-vega)** · 18 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Spring AI provides two APIs for interacting with LLMs: ChatClient and ChatModel. ChatClient is the high-level fluent API recommended for most use cases — it supports built-in advisors (memory, RAG, logging), structured output mapping to POJOs, and autoconfiguration via a builder. ChatModel is the low-level interface that ChatClient wraps, offering direct access to chat response metadata, token usage, multiple generations in one call, and fine-grained control. A practical Spring Boot 4 demo shows both APIs in action using OpenAI, illustrating when to default to ChatClient and when to drop down to ChatModel for infrastructure or advanced scenarios. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Spring AI tutorial: Get started with Spring AI](https://daily.dev/posts/spring-ai-tutorial-get-started-with-spring-ai-phjfbwkwg) · InfoWorld · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Introduction to Google GenAI Chat and Spring AI](https://daily.dev/posts/introduction-to-google-genai-chat-and-spring-ai-h3wj5zlvx) · Baeldung · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Spring AI 2.0 in Practice: Adding LLM Features to a Java Web App](https://daily.dev/posts/spring-ai-2-0-in-practice-adding-llm-features-to-a-java-web-app-kqfaxawkj) · Vaadin · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#java](https://daily.dev/tags/java), [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#openai](https://daily.dev/tags/openai), [#spring-boot](https://daily.dev/tags/spring-boot), [#spring-ai](https://daily.dev/tags/spring-ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/chatclient-vs-chatmodel-which-spring-ai-api-should-you-use--69qrj11xy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"ChatClient vs ChatModel: Which Spring AI API Should You Use?","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/chatclient-vs-chatmodel-which-spring-ai-api-should-you-use--69qrj11xy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/chatclient-vs-chatmodel-which-spring-ai-api-should-you-use--69qrj11xy"},"datePublished":"2026-07-02T20:46:05.003Z","dateModified":"2026-07-02T21:11:52.692Z","description":"Spring AI provides two APIs for interacting with LLMs: ChatClient and ChatModel. 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