Supervised Fine-Tuning versus Reinforcement Learning: A Study of Post-Training Methods for Large Language Models
A comprehensive research study examines the relationship between Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods for improving Large Language Models after pre-training. The research identifies emerging trends toward hybrid post-training approaches that combine both methods, analyzing applications from 2023-2025 to establish when each method is most effective.