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

Arete-27B vs LBS-27B

LBS-27B and Arete-27B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 55.8 (C) and 55.1 (C). Arete-27B leads on risk and 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

Arete-27BNous Research · Open-weight model C55.1/100#105 of 135 open-weight models LBS-27BinclusionAI (Ant Group) · Open-weight model C55.8/100#100 of 135 open-weight models

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

  • Risk, 55 against 50
  • Documentation and upkeep, 63 against 43

Watch for

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

LBS-27B C

Best for Agents with about 96 GB of GPU memory that need to find click targets on dense professional screenshots, or read fine detail in large images, and can run a small crop loop and wait for independent results.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 60 against 50
  • Agent interface, 70 against 60

Watch for

No independent benchmark result yet; ScreenSpot-Pro, OS-World-G, PerceptionBench and HR-Bench numbers are inclusionAI's own runs

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 +20

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.

LBS-27B 43

The model card earns 8, with intended use, one limitation and parameters, and no architecture, context, languages or cut-off. Training data earns 5 for a general description of synthetic GUI data with no cut-off. Last change earns 20 for 26 October 2026. Responsiveness earns 0, the one discussion unanswered. Version policy earns 5 for a first release. File health earns 5, as the config still sets an MTP layer the weights lack and the card names a reasoning setting the template refuses.

Reach LBS-27B +10

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.

LBS-27B 60

Memory earns 10, since the only build is 54.73 GB of BF16, about 66 GB with a fifth added, which fits the reference machine but not 64 GB. Runtimes earn 25 from released vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp, which all carry Qwen3.8-27B's architecture, and Ollama through the llama.cpp release it pins, so 25. Builds earn 0, as inclusionAI publishes no quantised build and the GGUF copies are bartowski's and mradermacher's. Terms earn 15 for Apache 2.0 with nothing added, on the weights and on the base. Download earns 10, with no gate. Hosted earns 0, as no provider or inclusionAI API serves it.

Agent interface LBS-27B +10

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.

LBS-27B 70

The chat template earns 20, Qwen's Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 10, as general tool calls rest on the inherited template and the crop action is parsed by inclusionAI's own code, not a runtime parser. Trained tool calling earns 20 for up to two crop actions per turn learned in GRPO. Structured output earns 0. Reasoning control earns 10, with reasoning effort documented and the reasoning shown as think text. Context earns 10 for 262,144 tokens with no scaling.

Risk Arete-27B +5

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.

LBS-27B 50

File safety earns 15, safetensors only but with the documented route running the publisher's scripts to serve it and to write its system prompt. Provenance earns 15, inclusionAI's own organisation with a hash for every file. Safety evaluation and agent guidance earn 0, as nothing is published on either, prompt injection through screenshots included. Licence risk keeps all 15 under Apache 2.0. The security programme earns 5 for Ant Group's AntSRC, which isn't linked to the model.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runArete-27BLBS-27BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%255060LBS-27B +10
Risk20%205550Arete-27B +5
Agent interface10%106070LBS-27B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%106343Arete-27B +20
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 55.1/100C 55.8/100

Facts side by side

FactArete-27BLBS-27B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorNous ResearchinclusionAI (Ant Group)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0 (the card's metadata and licence section; the LICENSE file sits in the GitHub repository inclusionAI/UI-Venus on its LBS branch, not in the Hugging Face repository)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-062026-10-26
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked

How the scores have moved

Arete-27B

No score change since it was listed.

LBS-27B

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.

LBS-27B

A 27B Qwen3.8 fine-tune for GUI grounding that zooms into screenshots over a few turns before naming a point, and inclusionAI says it also helps with fine detail in large images. It needs about 96 GB at BF16 and a client that runs its crop actions. Every result so far is inclusionAI's own, with no safety results or injection guidance.

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

LBS-27B

  1. Serve with vllm serve inclusionAI/LBS-27B --tensor-parallel-size 4 --max-model-len 65536, which is what the card's wrapper script runs; keep the context at 32,768 or more for multi-turn images
  2. Build the system prompt with build_system_prompt from the LBS branch's zoomin_grounding_protocol.py, send the screenshot after image_path: <name>, and don't pass tools; the model answers in plain text
  3. Parse <action>crop_image(image_path=..., x1=..., y1=..., x2=..., y2=...)</action>, cut the crop yourself and return it with its mapping to the original image; allow at most two crops per turn and three per episode
  4. Read the final answer as [x.xx,y.yy] on a 0 to 1000 scale of the original image, and use your own executor to click
  5. Pass reasoning_effort as xhigh, medium or low only, since the template raises an error for high, and don't count on thinking_budget, which the template ignores
  6. Don't turn on MTP speculative decoding; the MTP weights aren't in the repository though config.json names one MTP layer

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Arete-27B or LBS-27B?

LBS-27B and Arete-27B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 55.8 (C) and 55.1 (C). Arete-27B leads on risk and documentation and upkeep.

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