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

Arete-27B vs InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview

Arete-27B scores 55.1 (C) on agent readiness against InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview's 53.2 (D), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview leads on reach. 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

Arete-27B C

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

  • Agent interface, 60 against 45
  • Documentation and upkeep, 63 against 28

Watch for

No quantised build from Nous Research, so the GGUF route depends on a third party

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview D

Best for Agents with 64 GB to spare that want an Apache-licensed image and video reader with optional thinking and can live with a stale preview.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 65 against 50

Watch for

No quantised build from OpenGVLab, so about 51 GB at BF16

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.

Documentation and upkeep Arete-27B +35

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.

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview 28

Model card 8 of 20, the family card misses limitations, context, languages and a cut-off. Training data 5, described without a cut-off. Last change 0, the last commit to either repository is 8 September 2025 and to OpenGVLab's reference code 22 September 2025, over a year before 4 November 2026. Responsiveness 10, OpenGVLab answered 3 of 8 questions across the two repositories, none since September 2025. Version policy 5, a first release. File health 0, the template uses markers the tokenizer doesn't have and contradicts the twin's template, and the card names the wrong language model in its licence line.

Reach InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview +15

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.

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview 65

Memory 15 of 30, the only builds are BF16 at 42.5 GB by the repository's safetensors index, or 51 GB with a fifth added, which fits 64 GB. Runtimes 25, Transformers and vLLM load this repository, and SGLang, llama.cpp and Ollama (through llama.cpp b11963, which Ollama v0.40.14 pins) run the same weights in their GitHub format. Builds 0, OpenGVLab publishes no quantised build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added by the bases. Download 10, not gated. Hosted 0, no provider serves it.

Agent interface Arete-27B +15

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.

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview 45

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository, though it doesn't match the tokenizer. Tool-calling format 10 of 25, only the twin's inherited harmony template mentions tools. Trained tool calling 0, no evidence it was trained to call tools. Structured output 0. Reasoning control 10, a system prompt turns thinking on and the card says the reasoning comes back in think tags. Context 5, trained at 32K tokens.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runArete-27BInternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-PreviewEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%255065InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview +15
Risk20%205555even
Agent interface10%106045Arete-27B +15
Documentation and upkeep10%106328Arete-27B +35
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 55.1/100D 53.2/100

Facts side by side

FactArete-27BInternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorNous ResearchOpenGVLab (Shanghai AI Laboratory)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0; a merge of openai/gpt-oss-20b (Apache 2.0 with OpenAI's usage policy) and OpenGVLab/InternViT-300M-448px-V2_5 (MIT)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-062025-09-08
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone1.8/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

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.

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview

An image and video reader on gpt-oss-20b with an optional thinking mode, a preview untouched for over a year. It needs about 51 GB in BF16, since OpenGVLab publishes no quantised build, and runs in Transformers and vLLM. The main risk is a chat template in the Transformers-format repository that doesn't match its tokenizer, with no safety results.

Before you call either

Arete-27B

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. Thinking switches with enable_thinking in the template. The card's own evaluation ran with it off
  4. Expect answers on politically sensitive topics to differ from Qwen3.8-27B's. That is what the fine-tune is for
  5. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview

  1. Serve with vllm serve OpenGVLab/InternVL3_5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview-HF --max-model-len 32768, which is our command; the card gives none for vLLM
  2. Check the rendered prompt before relying on it, since the shipped template's <|im_start|> markers aren't tokens in the gpt-oss tokenizer; the GitHub-format repository's harmony template is the alternative
  3. Use Transformers 4.55.0 or later, as the card requires for this size
  4. For thinking, send the card's thinking system prompt and parse the reasoning out of the <think> tags, with temperature 0.6 and sampling on as the card advises
  5. Keep inputs within 32K tokens, the length it was trained at, whatever the config says

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Arete-27B or InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview?

Arete-27B scores 55.1 (C) on agent readiness against InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview's 53.2 (D), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview leads on reach.

Other comparisons with Arete-27B or InternVL3.5-GPT-OSS-20B-A4B-Preview

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