Fine-Tuning Strategy: When to Use LoRA, Full Fine-Tuning, and RLHF

Not all fine-tuning is equal. The choice between LoRA, full fine-tuning, instruction tuning, and RLHF depends on your dataset size, target behavior, compute budget, and whether you need format compliance, domain accuracy, or value alignment. Choosing the wrong technique is expensive and often produces worse results.