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

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 vs Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B leads on reach. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 2870 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 B

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 60

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

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B C

Best for Agents on a 24 to 32 GB GPU or Mac that want Qwen3.8-27B's skills with shorter thinking, for teams under US$1M revenue or research.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 80 against 70

Watch for

Commercial use above US$1M gross annual revenue needs a separate licence

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%257080Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B +10
Risk20%205050even
Agent interface10%107560DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 +15
Documentation and upkeep10%104343even
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 62.4/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactDeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorDeepSeekUkisAI
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITSwift Open License v1.0 (custom, not an OSI licence) on UkisAI's changes, free for commercial use below US$1M gross annual revenue with a separate Swift Enterprise License above it. Built on Qwen3.8-27B, whose Apache 2.0 still governs the base
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-312026-09-24
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)2.3/5 (4)

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 six inference providers serve it. The main risks are prompts built from DeepSeek's Python, no published safety results and no answers in its repository.

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B

A Qwen3.8-27B cousin post-trained to think in fewer tokens, for coding and agent work with images in, that fits a 24 GB machine with UkisAI's own 4-bit builds. Commercial use is free only below US$1M revenue. The main risks are that nobody at UkisAI answers its discussions, and that the shorter thinking rests on UkisAI's own benchmarks.

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 (Together, 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

Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B

  1. Quickest start is llama-server -hf ukisai/Swift-1.5-Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja, about 18.4 GB with the vision projector
  2. On our reference machine BF16 fits, vllm serve ukisai/Swift-1.5-Qwen3.8-27b --max-model-len 262144 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder
  3. The template is Qwen3.8-27B's, so chat_template_kwargs with reasoning_effort low, medium or xhigh (default) and enable_thinking false work as on the base
  4. UkisAI benchmarked it at temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 20 and presence_penalty 0, which is a reasonable starting point
  5. The MLX 4-bit build needs UkisAI's patched MLX-LM and has no image or video chat
  6. Check the licence before commercial use, it stops at US$1M gross annual revenue including affiliates
  7. MTP self-speculative decoding is available with the base's head, flags on the card

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 or Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B?

DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B leads on reach.

Other comparisons with DeepSeek-V4-Flash-0731 or Swift 1.5 Qwen3.8-27B

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