Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

Apodex-1.1-mini vs SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

Apodex-1.1-mini scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview leads on documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Apodex-1.1-mini C

Best for Long-running agent tasks with tools on a 32 GB GPU or Mac, or through Apodex's API, under a plain licence

Ahead on

  • Reach, 85 against 40
  • Risk, 65 against 50
  • Agent interface, 85 against 60

Watch for

No safety results, and agent guidance only from the harness

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview D

Best for Researchers who want to study or fine-tune a looped transformer, more than agents that need a model to call today

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 44 against 38

Watch for

No released runtime runs it. vLLM and SGLang need unmerged pull requests

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reach Apodex-1.1-mini +45

Apodex-1.1-mini 85

Memory 20, Apodex's Q4_K_M GGUF with its vision projector is 22.6 GB and needs about 27.1 GB with the fifth added, so 32 GB, as do its NVFP4 and GPTQ-Int4 builds. Runtimes 20, the Qwen3.5 MoE architecture runs in released vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp, while Ollama's and LM Studio's entries are the base's, not this model's. Builds 15, Apodex publishes FP8, NVFP4, GPTQ-Int4 and GGUF. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 5, Apodex's own API serves it.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 40

Memory 15, the only build is the safetensors set, 38.14 GB with its MTP head, since the Hub counts 9.41B of its parameters in F32. Runtimes 0, none of the six runs it in a released version. Builds 0, SenseNova publishes one set of weights and no quantised build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and on the card, which links the LICENSE in the GitHub repository, and nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API that serves it. 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 40.

Agent interface Apodex-1.1-mini +25

Apodex-1.1-mini 85

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, the card says how tools go in and come back and names the parser for SGLang and vLLM, with a full example. Trained tool calling 20, trained for native function calling with parallel calls. Structured output 0. Reasoning control 10, the template turns thinking off per request and the card says the reasoning comes back in reasoning_content. Context 10, 262,144 tokens.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (7,756 characters). Tool-calling format 10, only the template says it: a tools block, and calls written as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Trained tool calling 10, the card says the training recipes include tool trajectories and that the model is for agentic workflows. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, the card documents enable_thinking in the chat template call, on or off per request, and the template puts the reasoning in think tags ahead of the answer. Context 10, 262,144 tokens in training, per the card's specification table, and config.json gives the language model 262,144 positions. 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 60.

Risk Apodex-1.1-mini +15

Apodex-1.1-mini 65

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only and nothing from the repositories runs. Provenance 15, the files are in the apodex organisation its site links to, with a SHA-256 for every weight file and a SHA256SUMS file for the GGUF. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 5, the recommended harness documents approval gates and a sandbox boundary, but nothing on prompt injection or refusals for the model. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 from Qwen3.5-35B-A3B through to this model with no conditions added. Security programme 5, the harness has a disclosure policy with a private address, with no route shown for the weights.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 50

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the sensenova organisation, which the GitHub repository for the model links to (10), and the Hub gives a SHA-256 for the large files (5). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on instructions inside tool results or images. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no use policy, no threshold and no right to change the terms. Security programme 5, SenseTime's about page gives a security contact (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 50.

Documentation and upkeep SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview +6

Apodex-1.1-mini 38

Model card 8, it covers intended use, context and languages but not the architecture, parameters, limitations or a knowledge cut-off. Training data 5, a general description with no cut-off. Last change 15, the GGUF build went up on 10 September 2026, 54 days before 3 November. Responsiveness 0, Apodex answered none of the four discussions, unchanged on 3 November 2026. Version policy 5, 1.0-mini stays in its own repository without a note. File health 5, the files agree, but the card's agent example is broken and reports wait without a reply.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview 44

Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameter counts, the training context and the languages (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 5, one general sentence on the recipes, with no sources, sizes or cut-off. Last change 20, the last commit, on 2 November 2026, reworked the speculative decoding section of the card, 8 days before this check. Responsiveness 0, none of the 5 discussions that aren't pull requests (30 October to 9 November 2026) has a reply from a sensenova member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, labelled a preview, with dated news on the card. File health 0, the files contradict the card on precision. 14 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 0 = 44.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runApodex-1.1-miniSenseNova-Loop-9B-PreviewEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258540Apodex-1.1-mini +45
Risk20%206550Apodex-1.1-mini +15
Agent interface10%108560Apodex-1.1-mini +25
Documentation and upkeep10%103844SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview +6
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100D 46.8/100

Facts side by side

FactApodex-1.1-miniSenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorApodex AISenseTime (SenseNova)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-08-252026-11-02
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews3.3/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Apodex-1.1-mini

An agent cousin fine-tuned from Qwen3.5-35B-A3B for long tasks with files, code and tools, with parallel tool calling and about 3B active parameters. It needs 32 GB for Apodex's GGUF, NVFP4 or GPTQ-Int4 builds or about 86 GB in BF16, and Apodex's API serves it too. The main risks are no safety results and no replies from the publisher.

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

An unusual architecture under Apache 2.0, with a 256K training context, a thinking switch and tool calling in the template. It's a preview in practice too: no released runtime runs it, loading it runs the repository's code, the files are twice the size the card implies, and nobody from SenseNova has answered a question yet.

Before you call either

Apodex-1.1-mini

  1. Serve it with vllm serve apodex/Apodex-1.1-mini --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --reasoning-parser qwen3, or the same parsers in SGLang, so tool calls and reasoning come back parsed
  2. For llama.cpp, llama-server -hf apodex/Apodex-1.1-mini-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja --reasoning-format deepseek, and the card passes the repository's chat_template.jinja with --chat-template-file
  3. Pass tools through the API's tools parameter rather than in the system prompt, as the card asks
  4. The card recommends temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, repetition_penalty 1.05 and max_tokens up to 32,768
  5. Send your own system prompt, or set identity_mode, since the template otherwise adds an Apodex identity block
  6. The template keeps all earlier reasoning in the context unless preserve_thinking is false, which grows long agent sessions
  7. Thinking is on by default, send chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks, a switch the card doesn't mention
  8. The card's Python example has a broken line where it runs the tool (available_toolsname), so fix it to available_tools[name](**args) before running
  9. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

  1. Read modeling_sensenova_loop.py before you load it. trust_remote_code runs it
  2. Pin transformers 5.18.0, the version the card checked
  3. Load with dtype=torch.bfloat16 as the card does, or the 38 GB of F32 weights stay at full size
  4. Pass enable_thinking=False to apply_chat_template for a direct answer
  5. Tool calls come back as tool_call blocks with function and parameter tags. Parse them yourself, since no runtime ships a parser
  6. Wait for the vLLM or SGLang pull request to land in a release before putting it behind an API

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Apodex-1.1-mini or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview?

Apodex-1.1-mini scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview's 46.8 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview leads on documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Apodex-1.1-mini or SenseNova-Loop-9B-Preview

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