Build an LLM from Scratch
Build an LLM from Scratch by Sebastian Raschkaby Sebastian Raschka
Shares rank 2 of 10 machine learning books by recommenders
Readers say working through it built a real understanding of transformers and backpropagation, and the author made it free to read online.
Readers say working through it built a real understanding of transformers and backpropagation, and the author made it free to read online.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Clear explanations of new concepts
“I think it's an excellent book! One of my barriers in ML is the resources, I find them overcomplicated or too simplistic without a mid term.”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch” “this book is almost perfect. Every new concept is well described and every is well founded.”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Sebastian Raschka's from-scratch video course on building reasoning models” Builds real understanding of transformers
“I feel like I didn’t really understand the transformer mechanism until I worked through that book.”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “LLM Architecture Gallery” “finally getting how back propagation works via autograd etc. was really fun and enlightening”
Comment from 26 Oct 2026 in “Sebastian Raschka's from-scratch video course on building reasoning models”
Other machine learning books people recommend
The four most recommended other machine learning books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)by Sebastian Raschka | 16 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Build an LLM from Scratchby Sebastian RaschkaThis page | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Python Data Science Handbookby Jake VanderPlas | 8 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| The Little Learnerby Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekar | 6 | 2 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| Probabilistic Machine Learningby Kevin P. Murphy | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“this book is almost perfect. Every new concept is well described and every is well founded.”
“finally getting how back propagation works via autograd etc. was really fun and enlightening”
“I made it free to read so anyone can learn”
“I think it's an excellent book! One of my barriers in ML is the resources, I find them overcomplicated or too simplistic without a mid term.”
“is something amazing that I think anyone who wants to engineer things around LLMs should at least blast through and read”
“answers your question exactly”
“I'm better off reading [2] if I'm looking into that”
“I feel like I didn’t really understand the transformer mechanism until I worked through that book.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.