# Why does ADVI use stochastic gradient ascent not LBFGS

**URL:** <https://discourse.mc-stan.org/t/why-does-advi-use-stochastic-gradient-ascent-not-lbfgs/4683>\
**Category:** Algorithms\
**Created:** [June 29, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://discourse.mc-stan.org/t/why-does-advi-use-stochastic-gradient-ascent-not-lbfgs/4683 "2018-06-29T00:19:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 3

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**Author:** ![sakrejda](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.mc-stan.org/sakrejda/32/845_2.png) [@sakrejda](https://discourse.mc-stan.org/u/sakrejda)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2018, 6:12pm UTC](https://discourse.mc-stan.org/t/why-does-advi-use-stochastic-gradient-ascent-not-lbfgs/4683/3 "2018-06-29T18:12:22Z")

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Thanks that’s very helpful. I must’ve missed this in the algorithm just b/c it calls the same gradient calc as everything else. I’ll have to spend more time with it.

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