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

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 vs MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 and MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61.9 (C) and 61 (C). MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B leads on reach, 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 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 C

Best for Agents or teams with a multi-GPU server, or a provider account, who want DeepSeek's V4 agent model under MIT with a 1M context

Ahead on

  • Agent interface, 75 against 70

Watch for

The smallest 4-bit build is 156.4 GB, so it needs about 188 GB and doesn't fit a 128 GB machine

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B C

Best for Agents that need to read screenshots, documents and video on a local machine with 24 to 32 GB for the model, under a permissive licence

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 70
  • Risk, 55 against 50
  • Documentation and upkeep, 68 against 38

Watch for

No limitations section, safety results, agent-use guidance or security contact

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 MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +30

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 38

Model card 8, the card and the DSpark card it names give architecture, parameters and context, with intended use, limitations, languages and cut-off missing. Training data 5, a general description in the report with no cut-off. Last change 10, a card edit on 1 August 2026, 93 days before 2 November, so past 90 and within 180; deepseek-recipe 0.2.0 (20 October) stays read as a library-wide release, not a change to this model's files. Responsiveness 0, DeepSeek answered none of the 61 discussions, the newest opened on 17 October. Version policy 10, the preview and DSpark copies keep their own repositories and the dated 0731 release says what it supersedes. File health 5, the files agree with each other, but reports of tool-call errors and looping and a pull request for a missing chat template wait without a reply from DeepSeek.

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 68

Model card 8, it covers intended use, architecture and parameters but not limitations, context length, languages or a knowledge cut-off. Training data 0, none described. Last change 20, a commit on 3 November 2026. Responsiveness 20, OpenBMB answered 8 of 12 discussions. Version policy 10, earlier versions keep their repositories and the changes are dated and described. File health 10, the files agree. 8 + 0 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 = 68.

Reach MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +20

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 70

Memory 5, because the smallest build of 4-bit or better from a runtime's own library is LM Studio's MXFP4 GGUF at 156.4 GB, which with a fifth added needs 187.7 GB, more than our 107.4 GB machine and within 256 GB. DeepSeek's own release, 166.9 GB, sits in the same band. Runtimes 25, the cap, from vLLM v0.32.0, SGLang v0.5.22, llama.cpp release b11771, Transformers 5.20.0 and LM Studio's library, with Ollama not counted since its library entry is retired with no models pushed. Builds 10, DeepSeek ships one build, the FP8 and FP4 release itself. Terms 15, MIT with nothing added. Download 10, not gated. Hosted 5, DeepSeek's API moved to V4.1 Flash, but five inference providers on Hugging Face serve this repository live (Together's mapping has gone since 21 October).

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 90

Memory 25, since OpenBMB's IQ4_XS GGUF with its vision projector is 19.6 GB and needs about 23.6 GB with the fifth added, which fits 24 GB, while its Q4_K_M GGUF, 4-bit safetensors builds and Ollama entry need 32 GB. Runtimes 25, from vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23, Transformers 5.18.0 and later, llama.cpp's own MiniCPM-V 4.7 support and OpenBMB's entry on Ollama. Builds 15, OpenBMB publishes FP8, three 4-bit safetensors builds and GGUF. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, no inference provider is mapped. 25 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 90.

Risk MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +5

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 50

File safety 15, safetensors only, less 10 because prompts are built by running DeepSeek's encoding_dsv4.py from the repository and the card's serving commands pass --trust-remote-code. Provenance 15, the deepseek-ai organisation and a SHA-256 on every shard. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 0, the encoding README's notes about the parser and the reserved developer role are usage notes, read alike for all three DeepSeek listings. Licence risk 15, MIT with no deductions. Security programme 5, for the security@deepseek.com reporting address in DeepSeek's site footer, read as for DeepSeek-V3.2, with no security.txt and no public advisories.

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 55

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, no Python in the main repository and no remote code needed. Provenance 15, the files come from the openbmb organisation OpenBMB's GitHub README links to, with a SHA-256 for every weight file. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, nothing published on either, and the card has no limitations section. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0. Security programme 0, no security.txt or SECURITY.md.

Agent interface DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 +5

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 75

Chat template 10, there is no Jinja template and the format is given as Python to run. Tool-calling format 10, DeepSeek documents how tools are declared and returned and ships its own parser, but only vLLM's recipe names a runtime parser, so the 25 line isn't met. Trained tool calling 20, several invoke elements in one call block. Structured output 15, DeepSeek's deepseek-recipe library documents JSON Schema response formats for V4 prompts. Reasoning control 10, chat mode with no thinking and three effort levels in thinking mode, with reasoning returned as reasoning_content. Context 10, 1M tokens trained.

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 70

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, the card shows the tools array going in but not the call coming back, and names no parser. Trained tool calling 20, the template renders several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, not documented or claimed. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking per request, off by default, with the trace between markers. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%257090MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +20
Risk20%205055MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +5
Agent interface10%107570DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 +5
Documentation and upkeep10%103868MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +30
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61.9/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorDeepSeekOpenBMB
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITApache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-312026-11-03
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

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

A long-context agent cousin under MIT with documented tool calls, three reasoning effort levels and support in every major runtime but Ollama. It needs about 190 to 200 GB of memory, though five inference providers serve it. The main risks are prompts built from DeepSeek's Python, no published safety results and no answers in its repository.

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

A vision-language cousin for images and video that fits a 24 to 32 GB machine from OpenBMB's own GGUF, under plain Apache 2.0, with a publisher that answers. The card says little about limits, training data or how tool calls come back, so test the tool format in your runtime before relying on it.

Before you call either

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731

  1. vllm serve deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 --trust-remote-code --kv-cache-dtype fp8 --block-size 256 --data-parallel-size 4 --enable-expert-parallel --moe-backend deep_gemm_mega_moe --attention-config '{"use_fp4_indexer_cache": true}' --speculative-config '{"method":"dspark","num_speculative_tokens":7,"draft_sample_method":"greedy"}' --tokenizer-mode deepseek_v4 --tool-call-parser deepseek_v4 --enable-auto-tool-choice --reasoning-parser deepseek_v4 (the card's 4x GB300 example plus the parser flags from vLLM's recipe)
  2. Build prompts with encoding_dsv4.py, deepseek-recipe's V4 encoder or vLLM's --tokenizer-mode deepseek_v4, since the repository has no Jinja template
  3. Tool calls come back in a DSML tool_calls block with invoke elements, string parameters carry string="true" and JSON values string="false"
  4. Set temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 for agent work, and allow up to 384K output tokens at reasoning effort high or max
  5. Without the hardware, call it through a Hugging Face inference provider (DeepInfra, Novita, Baseten, Scaleway, Featherless), not DeepSeek's API, where deepseek-v4-flash now means V4.1 Flash
  6. LM Studio's library build is a 156.4 GB MXFP4 GGUF and LM Studio states 156 GB minimum system memory

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

  1. Start it with llama-server -hf openbmb/MiniCPM-V-4.7-35B-A3B-gguf:Q4_K_M --jinja, or ollama run openbmb/minicpm-v4.7:35b-a3b
  2. For image input in llama.cpp add mmproj-model-f16.gguf, or the 4x projector for more visual detail at a higher cost
  3. The GGUF files at the repository root have thinking off. Use the files in thinking/ when you want the trace
  4. With Transformers pass enable_thinking to apply_chat_template, and pass downsample_mode to both apply_chat_template and generate
  5. Use temperature 0.7, top_p 0.95 and top_k 100 in instruct mode, as the card recommends
  6. Check tool calls in your runtime first, since the card names no parser. The template uses the Qwen3.5 function-block format
  7. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 or MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 and MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61.9 (C) and 61 (C). MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B leads on reach, risk and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 or MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.