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

Cosmos-Reason2-2B vs EXAONE 4.5 33B

EXAONE 4.5 33B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Cosmos-Reason2-2B's 59.5 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Cosmos-Reason2-2B leads on risk. 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

Cosmos-Reason2-2B C

Best for Agents that need a small local model to reason over camera footage and images for robotics, driving or smart spaces

Ahead on

  • Risk, 60 against 50

Watch for

Gated behind a click-through licence that needs a Hugging Face account

EXAONE 4.5 33B C

Best for Researchers and students working on documents, Korean or multimodal agents who don't need commercial rights

Ahead on

  • Agent interface, 85 against 65
  • Documentation and upkeep, 50 against 39

Watch for

Research and education only. No commercial use of the model or its output

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 EXAONE 4.5 33B +20

Cosmos-Reason2-2B 65

A Jinja template ships as chat_template.json (20). Tools are declared only by the template it inherits from Qwen3-VL, with no NVIDIA documentation or parser (10), and nothing shows the 2B was trained for tool use (0). NVIDIA's prompt files ask for JSON with named keys for boxes, events and trajectories (15). Reasoning is asked for in the prompt and vLLM's qwen3 parser returns it apart (10). The card states 256K input tokens (10).

EXAONE 4.5 33B 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (5,930 characters). Tool-calling format 25, the card's vLLM command names the parser, hermes with auto tool choice, and its agentic example calls tools from MCP servers through the OpenAI-compatible API, so declaration and return follow that API. Trained tool calling 20, the card reports agentic tool use among its language results and shows an agent run with several tool servers, and the template renders every call in a turn. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking is on by default and the card says to set it false for the non-reasoning mode, with an example of each. Context 10, 262,144 tokens per the card's configuration table and config.json, and the card's serve commands run at that length. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Documentation and upkeep EXAONE 4.5 33B +11

Cosmos-Reason2-2B 39

The card misses languages and a cut-off (14). Training data is named by dataset without sizes or a cut-off (5). The Hub repository last changed on 30 April 2026, 188 days before this check, which alone gives 5. NVIDIA's GitHub repository last changed with a README redirect to Cosmos 3 on 7 June 2026, 150 days back, and this run counts the publisher's documentation commits on this line (10). None of its 3 discussions has an NVIDIA reply, counted by author flags on 4 November (0). The 2B's weights were replaced in place in March with a dated line, and the family is now superseded by Cosmos 3 with a dated note (5). The gated files couldn't be checked against the card, which itself mixes float16 and BF16 and links a newer licence than the gate shows (5). 14 + 5 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 39.

EXAONE 4.5 33B 50

Model card 20, Uses (the quickstart's question answering, document and agent examples), limitations, the architecture, the parameters, the context, the languages (in the metadata) and a knowledge cut-off of December 2024 are all on the card. Training data 5, A knowledge cut-off and one line on excluding personal, harmful and biased content, with no sources or sizes. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 6 July 2026 (dependencies moved to official releases), 127 days before this check, and the FP8 repository on 9 August, 93 days. Responsiveness 0, none of the 5 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (13 April to 4 May 2026) has a reply from an LGAI-EXAONE member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, EXAONE 4.0 and 4.0.1 stay in their own repositories and 4.5 came out in new ones, with no dated note on the older cards that we read. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the 262,144 tokens, and a July commit moved the dependencies to released versions. 20 + 5 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 50.

Risk Cosmos-Reason2-2B +10

Cosmos-Reason2-2B 60

File safety gets the full 25, one safetensors file loaded by Transformers' own code with a template, no remote code. Provenance gets 15 for files in NVIDIA's own organisation with hashes. The licence has a use policy and guardrail clause and NVIDIA can revoke or update it, so licence risk keeps 5 of 15. NVIDIA's PSIRT route and bulletins give the security programme 10. Agent guidance gets 5 for general cautions about guardrails and physical risk, and safety evaluation 0, with no safety results.

EXAONE 4.5 33B 50

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in the LGAI-EXAONE organisation (LG AI Research on the Hub), which the card's GitHub repository shares a name with and the licence in the repository is LG's (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions: the limitation section lists inappropriate, biased, incorrect and outdated answers and tells users not to try to induce harmful output. Licence risk 5, 15 less 5 for field-of-use limits beyond the law (no commercial use, no building competing models) and 5 for terms the licensor can change or revoke (LG may amend the agreement at any time, and the licence is revocable). Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw on the card beyond a support contact, and www.lgresearch.ai has no security.txt. 25 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 5 + 0 = 50.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runCosmos-Reason2-2BEXAONE 4.5 33BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%256565even
Risk20%206050Cosmos-Reason2-2B +10
Agent interface10%106585EXAONE 4.5 33B +20
Documentation and upkeep10%103950EXAONE 4.5 33B +11
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 59.5/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactCosmos-Reason2-2BEXAONE 4.5 33B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorNVIDIALG AI Research
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceNVIDIA Open Model License (custom, commercial use allowed, not an OSI licence); built on Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct under Apache 2.0EXAONE AI Model License Agreement 1.2 - NC (research and education only)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-03-102026-07-06
Terms last updated2025-10-24not read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train modelsyesnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textnot read yet
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Cosmos-Reason2-2B

A small local model for reasoning over video and images in robotics, driving and warehouse scenes, returning points, boxes and timed events as JSON. The 4.9 GB file runs in Transformers or vLLM, though NVIDIA asks for 24 GB of GPU memory. Development has moved to Cosmos 3, and the gated licence is revocable.

EXAONE 4.5 33B

A well-documented vision-language model with a full set of builds, tool calling, switchable reasoning, a 256K context and a stated knowledge cut-off. The licence decides whether you can use it: research and education only, output included, and LG can change the terms. Nothing answered on the repository and no safety results.

Before you call either

Cosmos-Reason2-2B

  1. Accept the licence on the Hugging Face card with a signed-in account and set HF_TOKEN before downloading
  2. Serve it with vllm serve nvidia/Cosmos-Reason2-2B --max-model-len 16384 --media-io-kwargs '{"video": {"num_frames": -1}}' --reasoning-parser qwen3, keeping max-model-len between 8,192 and 16,384 as NVIDIA advises
  3. For local video or images, make a folder for them (mkdir -p media) and pass --allowed-local-media-path "$(pwd)/media", so the server can read only that folder, not everything under the directory you start it from
  4. Sample video at 4 fps and allow at least 4,096 output tokens so the reasoning isn't cut off
  5. For reasoning, add the card's instruction to answer with a think block and then the answer; leave it out for a direct reply
  6. Use NVIDIA's prompt files (prompts/*.yaml in nvidia-cosmos/cosmos-reason2) when you want JSON boxes, events or trajectories, and validate the JSON yourself
  7. Check its plans before a robot acts on them, since NVIDIA's own safety card warns of collision and manipulation risks

EXAONE 4.5 33B

  1. Don't use it, or anything it writes, commercially. The licence covers the output too
  2. Serve it with vLLM and --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser hermes
  3. Set enable_thinking false for a direct answer. Thinking is on by default
  4. Use temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and presence_penalty 1.5 in general, and temperature 0.6 with top_k 20 for documents and Korean
  5. For llama.cpp, load a projector file from LG's GGUF repository with the weights for image input
  6. Its knowledge stops at December 2024

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Cosmos-Reason2-2B or EXAONE 4.5 33B?

EXAONE 4.5 33B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Cosmos-Reason2-2B's 59.5 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Cosmos-Reason2-2B leads on risk.

Other comparisons with Cosmos-Reason2-2B or EXAONE 4.5 33B

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