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

Cola2 vs DeepSeek-V3.2

DeepSeek-V3.2 scores 58.6 (C) on agent readiness against Cola2's 33.9 (F), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Cola2 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

Cola2 F

Best for Researchers working on latent or diffusion language models who want a checkpoint to study

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 58 against 34

Watch for

No licence stated for the weights

DeepSeek-V3.2 C

Best for Teams with an eight-GPU server who want an MIT agent model with broad runtime support, or agents calling it through a hosted provider

Ahead on

  • Reach, 60 against 25
  • Risk, 50 against 40
  • Agent interface, 60 against 20

Watch for

689.5 GB of FP8 files and no smaller build from DeepSeek or a runtime library, far beyond 107.4 GB

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.

Agent interface DeepSeek-V3.2 +40

Cola2 20

Chat template 20, A chat template in tokenizer_config.json (4,116 characters), which came with the Qwen3 tokenizer. Tool-calling format 0, none. Trained tool calling 0, not trained for tool calling. Structured output 0, Nothing about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 0, no reasoning mode. Context 0, no context length is stated. 20 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 20.

DeepSeek-V3.2 60

The chat template earns 10, as the format exists only as Python code to run. The tool-calling format earns 10 because DeepSeek documents the DSML format in code but names no runtime parser, which only vLLM's own recipe does. Trained tool calling earns the full 20 for several calls in one block. Structured output earns nothing, as JSON output isn't documented. Reasoning control earns 10 for thinking or chat mode per request with reasoning_content returned. Context earns 10 for 128K trained tokens.

Reach DeepSeek-V3.2 +35

Cola2 25

Memory 15, the only build is the F32 safetensors set, 35.07 GB, and 35.07 GB × 1.2 = 42.1 GB, within 64 GB. Loaded as BF16, as the card's example does, it needs about half, but the line reads the file size. Runtimes 0, none of the six runs it in a released version. Builds 0, one set of weights and no quantised build. Terms 0, no licence for the weights. 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 nothing names an API that serves it. 15 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 + 0 = 25.

DeepSeek-V3.2 60

Memory earns nothing, because the only build from DeepSeek or a runtime's library is the 689.5 GB FP8 release, which needs about 827 GB with the fifth added. Runtimes earn the full 25 for released model code in vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp and Transformers, and for Ollama 0.40.14, whose llama.cpp pin (b11963) carries the deepseek32 architecture with no gate in Ollama's server code, though its library entry stays retired; nothing from LM Studio. Builds earn 10 for the single FP8 precision DeepSeek publishes. Terms earn the full 15 for MIT with nothing added, and download the full 10 since the repository isn't gated. Hosted earns nothing, since DeepSeek's own API moved to V4 on 24 April 2026 and Hugging Face maps only DeepInfra as live for it on 4 November (Novita and Featherless in error), where the line needs two providers. Fireworks' model page says Serverless Not Supported and lists it only for on-demand deployment on dedicated GPUs, which is renting the hardware rather than calling a served model.

Documentation and upkeep Cola2 +24

Cola2 58

Model card 8, Intended use and limitations (the out-of-scope list, and the unconverged latent model) and the architecture are on the card and the GitHub model card it links. Training data 15, the GitHub model card names the source (OLMo 2 pretraining text, retokenised) and the mix by stage with token counts, 346.03B in all. Last change 20, All six commits are from 6 November 2026, four days before this check, the last one updating a checksum in the README. Responsiveness 0, no discussions on the repository, so nobody has asked anything yet and the line reads as none answered, as settled in calibration. Version policy 5, A first release. File health 10, Config, files and card agree: F32 weights, a float32 config and a card that says to load them as bfloat16, with SHA256SUMS to check the download. 8 + 15 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 58.

DeepSeek-V3.2 34

The model card earns 14 when read with DeepSeek's own V3.2 model card PDF, which adds intended use and a parameter count, leaving languages and a knowledge cut-off missing. Training data earns 5, a general description with no cut-off. Last change earns 5, as nothing in the repository has changed since 1 December 2025 (338 days on 4 November) and DeepSeek's deepseek-recipe has no V3.2 code. Responsiveness earns nothing, with no reply from a deepseek-ai member in any of the 40 most recent discussions. Version policy earns 5 for earlier versions kept apart without dated notes. File health earns 5 because loading and parsing reports wait without a reply.

Risk DeepSeek-V3.2 +10

Cola2 40

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the ByteDance-Seed organisation, which the ByteDance-Seed GitHub repository for the model links to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results. Agent guidance 5, General cautions in the GitHub model card: not instruction-tuned or safety-aligned, not for use as an assistant, for facts or advice, or for high-impact decisions about people. Licence risk 0, With no licence for the weights there is nothing to hold ByteDance to. Security programme 5, the GitHub repository's SECURITY.md sends reports to ByteDance's security centre and says how they're assessed (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 0 + 5 = 40.

DeepSeek-V3.2 50

File safety earns 15, safetensors only but 10 off because prompts are built by running DeepSeek's Python from the repository. Provenance earns the full 15 for the deepseek-ai organisation and a SHA-256 on every shard. Safety evaluation earns nothing, since no results are published anywhere. Agent guidance earns nothing, since the notes about the parser and the developer role are usage notes, read alike for all three DeepSeek listings. Licence risk keeps the full 15 for plain MIT. The security programme earns 5 for the security@deepseek.com reporting address on DeepSeek's site, with no public advisories.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCola2DeepSeek-V3.2Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%252560DeepSeek-V3.2 +35
Risk20%204050DeepSeek-V3.2 +10
Agent interface10%102060DeepSeek-V3.2 +40
Documentation and upkeep10%105834Cola2 +24
Negative events≤1500
TotalF 33.9/100C 58.6/100

Facts side by side

FactCola2DeepSeek-V3.2
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorByteDance (Seed)DeepSeek
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceNone stated for the weights (the code is Apache 2.0)MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-062025-12-01
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Cola2

A research release, and an honest one: ByteDance Seed says it's a base model with an unconverged latent stage, scoring below Llama-3-8B on its own table. It's here for people studying continuous-latent generation. Agents can't use it as a model: 32-token completions, no chat or tools, the repository's own code to load it, and no licence on the weights.

DeepSeek-V3.2

DeepSeek-V3.2 is an MIT-licensed reasoning model trained for parallel tool calls, with thinking chosen per request, for long agent work. It needs about 690 GB of FP8 files, eight 80 GB GPUs in vLLM's recipe and prompts built from DeepSeek's Python. The main risk is neglect, with no file changes since December 2025 and no safety evaluation.

Before you call either

Cola2

  1. Don't plan to use this as your model. It completes short prompts and wasn't tuned to follow instructions
  2. Don't use it commercially on the strength of this listing. The weights have no stated licence
  3. If you study it, read modeling_cola2.py first: trust_remote_code runs it
  4. Pin Transformers below 5, as the card requires
  5. Pass a seeded torch.Generator to generate(). Output varies between runs even with greedy decoding
  6. Check the download with sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

DeepSeek-V3.2

  1. Start it with vLLM's recipe, vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3.2 --tensor-parallel-size 8 --tokenizer-mode deepseek_v32 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser deepseek_v32 --reasoning-parser deepseek_v3
  2. It doesn't fit the 107.4 GB reference machine at any qualifying build, so call DeepInfra (deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V3.2) or deploy it on Fireworks instead
  3. Outside vLLM, build prompts with encoding/encoding_dsv32.py and wrap parse_message_from_completion_text in error handling, since DeepSeek says it handles well-formed output only
  4. Pick thinking or chat with thinking_mode, and read the reasoning from reasoning_content
  5. Send developer messages only for search-agent prompts, the only use DeepSeek gives that role
  6. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 and keep prompts within 128K tokens

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cola2 or DeepSeek-V3.2?

DeepSeek-V3.2 scores 58.6 (C) on agent readiness against Cola2's 33.9 (F), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Cola2 leads on documentation and upkeep.

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