# SILVA138 Classifier vs. Consensus Classifier
**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva138-classifier-vs-consensus-classifier/17876
**Category:** User Support
**Created:** [December 24, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva138-classifier-vs-consensus-classifier/17876 "2020-12-24T18:06:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ellenphant](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Ellenphant)
#### Post date: [December 24, 2020, 6:06pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva138-classifier-vs-consensus-classifier/17876/1 "2020-12-24T18:06:03Z")
I am currently planning on running some new 16S samples with SILVA138 trimmed to the primer region and I downloaded the qza files from [this previous thread](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva-138-classifiers/13131) (which was very helpful!).
However, I am a bit confused whether I should use the consensus classifier or just the regular one? Can someone explain the difference?
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### Author:  [@Nicholas\_Bokulich](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Nicholas_Bokulich)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 9:07am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva138-classifier-vs-consensus-classifier/17876/2 "2020-12-28T09:07:29Z")
Hi @Ellenphant,
> [@Ellenphant](#):
>
> I downloaded the qza files from [this previous thread](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva-138-classifiers/13131)
As you can see from the note at the top of that thread, those instructions have been replaced by a more recently released plugin. I recommend you follow the link to that tutorial to use the most up-to-date methods.
But if you just want pre-trimmed sequences and/or pre-trained classifiers, the latest versions (with SILVA 138) are available from the [QIIME 2 data resources](https://docs.qiime2.org/2020.11/data-resources/).
> [@Ellenphant](#):
>
> I am a bit confused whether I should use the consensus classifier or just the regular one?
These are two entirely different methods for taxonomy classification. I recommend reading (1) the documentation (help docs, Q2 website) or (2) the primary literature on the topic to better understand the inner workings of q2-feature-classifier:
> **[Optimizing taxonomic classification of marker-gene amplicon sequences with...](https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-018-0470-z)**
>
> Background Taxonomic classification of marker-gene sequences is an important step in microbiome analysis. Results We present q2-feature-classifier ( https://github.com/qiime2/q2-feature-classifier ), a QIIME 2 plugin containing several novel...
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 28, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/silva138-classifier-vs-consensus-classifier/17876/3 "2021-01-28T15:07:30Z")
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