Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Arete-27B vs gpt-oss-120b
gpt-oss-120b scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Arete-27B's 55.1 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Arete-27B 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 4969 open weights comparisons
Which one, for what
Best for Agents that want Qwen3.8-27B's coding and tool use without its handling of politically sensitive topics, on a 24 GB card or a 128 GB machine
Ahead on
- Documentation and upkeep, 63 against 45
Watch for
No quantised build from Nous Research, so the GGUF route depends on a third party
gpt-oss-120b BB
Best for Agents on one 80 GB GPU or a 128 GB unified machine that want an Apache 2.0 reasoning model with wide runtime support
Ahead on
- Reach, 75 against 50
- Risk, 95 against 55
- Agent interface, 90 against 60
Also in its favour
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
Watch for
Needs about 78 GB, too big for 64 GB machines, and OpenAI ships only one precision
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.
Risk gpt-oss-120b +40
Arete-27B 55
File safety 25, safetensors only and no remote code. Provenance 15, Nous Research's own organisation, linked from its blog, with a hash on every file. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, nothing published on either. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0. Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw found. 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 55.
gpt-oss-120b 95
File safety earns 25, safetensors only, with metal/model.bin a raw format and not pickle, and nothing from the repository runs on load. Provenance earns 15, files in OpenAI's linked organisation with a hash for every file. Safety evaluation earns 20, published results with SecureBio as an outside evaluator. Agent guidance earns 15 for the trained instruction hierarchy with prompt-injection results. Licence risk keeps all 15. The security programme earns 5 for OpenAI's Bugcrowd programme and disclosure policy, and the advisories half scores 0 because GitHub couldn't be checked, not because it was found missing.
Agent interface gpt-oss-120b +30
Arete-27B 60
Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, only the template says it. Trained tool calling 20, several calls a turn and agentic work as an intended use. Structured output 0 and reasoning control 0, neither is documented on the card. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native. 20 + 10 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 60.
gpt-oss-120b 90
The chat template earns 20, a Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 25, since OpenAI documents declarations and returned calls in harmony and tells vLLM users to parse with openai-harmony. Trained tool calling earns 10, because each call stops generation, so calls come one at a time. Structured output earns 15 for the documented Response Formats section with a JSON Schema. Reasoning control earns 10, three effort levels per request with the reasoning on the analysis channel. Context earns 10 for 131,072 trained tokens.
Reach gpt-oss-120b +25
Arete-27B 50
Memory 10, the only build from Nous Research is the 54.7 GB BF16 release, which needs about 66 GB and fits the reference machine. Runtimes 15, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers run the base's architecture from those files, and llama.cpp isn't credited because Nous Research publishes no GGUF. Builds 0, no quantised build of its own. Terms 15, Apache 2.0. Download 10, not gated. Hosted 0, no provider. 10 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 50.
gpt-oss-120b 75
Memory earns 10, because the smallest 4-bit build, Ollama's 65 GB gpt-oss:120b, needs about 78 GB with the fifth added, which fits the reference machine but not 64 GB. Runtimes earn the full 25 from Transformers, vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp and Ollama. Builds earn 10, since OpenAI ships one precision, MXFP4. Terms earn 15 for Apache 2.0 with a policy that asks only for lawful use. Download earns 10, with no gate or account. Hosted earns 5, since 11 inference providers serve it on Hugging Face even though OpenAI's own API doesn't.
Documentation and upkeep Arete-27B +18
Arete-27B 63
Model card 8, no limitations, context length, languages or cut-off. Training data 20, the training pairs and the evaluation set are published with their counts. Last change 20, a commit on 6 November 2026. Responsiveness 0, none of 13 discussions has a reply from Nous Research. Version policy 5, a first release. File health 10, the files agree. 8 + 20 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 63.
gpt-oss-120b 45
The model card earns 20, with all seven items in OpenAI's arXiv card. Training data earns 10, a general description with a cut-off. Last change earns 5, since the last change to code that runs the model was the Metal reference on 1 November 2025, a year before this check, and the files date from August 2025. It drops to 0 after 1 November 2026 unless the files, template or reference code change. Responsiveness earns 0, with no OpenAI reply in the 40 latest discussions. Version policy earns 5 as a first release. File health earns 5, the files agree but template and tokenizer reports wait without a reply.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Arete-27B | gpt-oss-120b | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 50 | 75 | gpt-oss-120b +25 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 95 | gpt-oss-120b +40 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 60 | 90 | gpt-oss-120b +30 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 63 | 45 | Arete-27B +18 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 55.1/100 | BB 70.2/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Arete-27B | gpt-oss-120b |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Nous Research | OpenAI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2025-08-26 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (4) |
Verdicts
Arete-27B
Qwen3.8-27B with its answers on politically sensitive topics retrained, four days old when read. The training data is published, which is rare. Nous Research ships BF16 only, so a small machine runs it from bartowski's GGUF, and the card documents none of the tool or thinking controls it inherits.
gpt-oss-120b
A reasoning and agent cousin that runs in most runtimes under Apache 2.0 with published safety work. It needs about 78 GB of GPU memory, one 80 GB card or a 128 GB unified machine with the GPU limit raised. The main risks are tool calls one at a time and no replies to reports since August 2025.
Before you call either
Arete-27B
- Start it with
llama-server -hf bartowski/NousResearch_Arete-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja, a third party's conversion, or serve the BF16 files with vLLM - Use the base's parsers in vLLM,
--reasoning-parser qwen3 --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, and check tool calls first, since the template differs slightly from Qwen3.8-27B's - Thinking switches with
enable_thinkingin the template. The card's own evaluation ran with it off - Expect answers on politically sensitive topics to differ from Qwen3.8-27B's. That is what the fine-tune is for
- Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented
gpt-oss-120b
- Start it with
ollama run gpt-oss:120bon the reference machine, the build that fits - On the Strix Halo machine raise the GPU memory limit first with
amd-ttm --set 100, since the default of about 62.8 GiB is below the 78 GB it needs - With vLLM use
vllm serve openai/gpt-oss-120b --tool-call-parser openai --enable-auto-tool-choiceper vLLM's recipe, or parse raw output with openai-harmony - Always use the harmony format through the chat template or openai-harmony, the card says it won't work correctly otherwise
- Set
Reasoning: lowin the system message for short tasks, medium is the default - Pass the reasoning back after a tool call until the final answer, and keep the analysis channel away from end users
- Expect one tool call per turn and loop, don't wait for parallel calls
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Arete-27B or gpt-oss-120b?
gpt-oss-120b scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Arete-27B's 55.1 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Arete-27B leads on documentation and upkeep.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/arete-27b-vs-gpt-oss-120b.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/arete-27b.json·/api/v1/tools/gpt-oss-120b.json - From a terminal
anchor compare arete-27b gpt-oss-120b(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "arete-27b", "b": "gpt-oss-120b"}at/mcp, no key