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

Darwin-36B-Opus vs MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

Darwin-36B-Opus and MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL leads on agent interface. 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

Darwin-36B-Opus C

Best for Reasoning-heavy text tasks on a 32 GB machine or a single 80 GB GPU, where a disclosed training method isn't required

Ahead on

  • Reach, 80 against 65
  • Risk, 55 against 45

Watch for

The merge method is proprietary and the current weights include an undescribed targeted refinement

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL C

Best for Teams with a GPU server, or a provider account, that want an open agent model with a very long context

Ahead on

  • Agent interface, 85 against 70

Watch for

178 GB at 4 bits, so it needs about 200 GB of memory

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.

Reach Darwin-36B-Opus +15

Darwin-36B-Opus 80

Memory 20, the publisher's Q4_K_M GGUF is 21.2 GB and needs about 25.4 GB with the fifth added, so 32 GB. Runtimes 20, the text-only Qwen3.5 MoE class runs in released vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp, while Ollama's and LM Studio's entries are the base's, not this model's. Builds 15, FINAL-Bench's POCKET-35B-GGUF has it at four precisions. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added, with a LICENSE file since 1 November 2026, and Apache 2.0 on the base Qwen3.6-35B-A3B too. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, no provider or API serves it.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 65

Memory 5, the smallest build at 4 bits or better is ggml-org's MXFP4 GGUF, 168.93 GB with its projector, and 168.93 GB × 1.2 = 202.7 GB, within 256 GB. Xiaomi's own files are 177.74 GB. ggml-org's Q2_K is below 4 bits and isn't read. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0 and SGLang 0.5.23 have the mimo_v2 model and the mimo parsers, Transformers 5.22.2 has a mimo_v2_flash model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture, with a GGUF from its own organisation. Builds 10, one precision from Xiaomi, the 4-bit files it releases. Terms 15, MIT in the card's metadata, an OSI licence. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, the card says it is on Xiaomi's MiMo Open Platform API and on OpenRouter, and Novita is live for it on Hugging Face. 5 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 65.

Agent interface MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL +15

Darwin-36B-Opus 70

Chat template 20, Qwen3.6's Jinja template in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, the format is only in the template and the card says nothing about tools. Trained tool calling 20, inherited from the base that was trained for it, with several calls in one turn in the template, though the publisher neither claims nor tests it. Structured output 0. Reasoning control 10, the template turns thinking off per request and the card shows where the reasoning comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (3,868 characters), with a copy in tokenizer_config.json. Tool-calling format 25, the card names the parser to use in two runtimes: the mimo tool-call parser in SGLang and in vLLM, with auto tool choice, and both ship it in a release. Trained tool calling 20, the card describes reinforcement learning on coding and general agent tasks across several harnesses, 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, the template has an enable_thinking switch and keeps reasoning_content, and the card names the mimo reasoning parser for SGLang and vLLM, which returns the reasoning apart from the answer. Context 10, 1M tokens per the card's model summary, and 1,048,576 positions in config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Risk Darwin-36B-Opus +10

Darwin-36B-Opus 55

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only with no code in the repository, so the card's trust_remote_code flag loads nothing extra. Provenance 15, the files are in the FINAL-Bench organisation that vidraft.net links to, with a SHA-256 for every weight file. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, nothing published. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 through the whole chain with no conditions added. Security programme 0, no security.txt, policy or contact.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL 45

File safety 5, the weights are safetensors, but the dflash folder's mask_embedding.pt is a pickle beside them (15). Provenance 15, the files sit in the XiaomiMiMo organisation, which mimo.xiaomi.com links to per the Distill listing (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions only. Licence risk 15, MIT has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Xiaomi runs a company security centre for reporting flaws, as read for the Distill listing (5). 5 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 45.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDarwin-36B-OpusMiMo-V2.6-Flash-RLEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258065Darwin-36B-Opus +15
Risk20%205545Darwin-36B-Opus +10
Agent interface10%107085MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL +15
Documentation and upkeep10%106159Darwin-36B-Opus +2
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactDarwin-36B-OpusMiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorFINAL-Bench (VIDRAFT)Xiaomi (MiMo team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT (metadata only, no LICENSE file)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-04-232026-10-28
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

Darwin-36B-Opus

A text-only reasoning cousin merged from Qwen3.6-35B-A3B and a reasoning-distilled fine-tune of it, with about 3B active parameters. It needs 32 GB for the publisher's 4-bit GGUF or about 83 GB in BF16, and runs in vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp. The main risks are an undisclosed merge method, a card that disagrees with its files, and no safety results.

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

A large agent model with an open licence: text, images, video and audio, a 1M context, tool calling it was trained for, and code in four released runtimes. It's a server model, 178 GB at 4 bits, and the card's commands run the repository's code. No safety results, little said about data, and few questions answered.

Before you call either

Darwin-36B-Opus

  1. Quickest start is llama-server -hf FINAL-Bench/POCKET-35B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja, about 21 GB of files
  2. On the reference machine BF16 fits, vllm serve FINAL-Bench/Darwin-36B-Opus --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, the parsers for Qwen3.6's format
  3. Thinking is on by default, send chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks, a switch the card doesn't mention
  4. The card suggests temperature 0.6 to 0.7 and at least 5,120 new tokens for its think traces
  5. generation_config.json stops only on the end-of-text token, so add <|im_end|> as a stop token if a runtime keeps generating after the turn ends
  6. Text only, the vision encoder of Qwen3.6-35B-A3B isn't in these files
  7. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

  1. Plan for a provider unless you have a multi-GPU server: Xiaomi's API platform, OpenRouter or Novita
  2. On SGLang or vLLM pass --tool-call-parser mimo --reasoning-parser mimo
  3. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95, as the card recommends
  4. The card's commands pass trust-remote-code. Read the repository's three Python files first, or use Transformers 5.22.2, which has the model built in
  5. Skip the dflash folder unless you need speculative decoding. Its mask_embedding.pt is a pickle
  6. The Use Restrictions section asks for human oversight of high-risk actions

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Darwin-36B-Opus or MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL?

Darwin-36B-Opus and MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL leads on agent interface.

Other comparisons with Darwin-36B-Opus or MiMo-V2.6-Flash-RL

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