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

Devstral Small 2 vs Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

Devstral Small 2 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Nemotron 3 Nano 4B's 56.8 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Nemotron 3 Nano 4B leads on risk, agent interface 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

Devstral Small 2 C

Best for Developers who want a dependable local coding agent on one consumer GPU or a 32 GB Mac

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No limitations, safety results, languages or data on the card

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B C

Best for Agents on laptops, edge boards and small GPUs that need a cheap local tool-calling helper in English

Ahead on

  • Risk, 65 against 60
  • Agent interface, 70 against 65
  • Documentation and upkeep, 55 against 46

Watch for

The card's Transformers and vLLM commands pass trust_remote_code and load a parser plugin from the repository

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 Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +9

Devstral Small 2 46

Model card 11, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters and the context are on the card. Training data 0, Nothing on the card about the training data. Last change 10, the last commit, on 15 July 2026, updated the files to match mistral-common, 118 days before this check and within 180. Responsiveness 10, Of the 23 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (9 December 2025 to 6 November 2026), 11 have a reply from a mistralai member, which is some. Version policy 5, Devstral Small 1.1 stays in its own repository, which this card links as the predecessor, with no dated note on the older card that we read. File health 10, Config, template, tokenizer and card agree, and the June and July commits fixed stray tokens and brought the files in line with mistral-common. 11 + 0 + 10 + 10 + 5 + 10 = 46.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 55

The model card earns 20, all seven items with limitations in the linked subcard. Training data earns 20, datasets listed with sources and dates, crawled sets with token counts, a cut-off and published NVIDIA datasets, though most synthetic sizes are undisclosed. Last change earns 5, as the files last changed on 20 March 2026, and TensorRT-LLM's Nemotron-H commits since 14 October touch MoE, NVFP4 and Puzzle paths this dense model doesn't use, in release candidates or no release. Responsiveness earns 0, with no NVIDIA reply to any of six questions, re-counted on 4 November. Version policy earns 5 as a first release. File health earns 5, since the LICENSE file is empty, reports and fixes wait without a reply, and the card's Transformers snippet names a repository that isn't public.

Risk Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +5

Devstral Small 2 60

File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, files in Mistral's verified mistralai organisation, which Mistral's site links to per our Mistral Large 4 listing (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on prompt injection, instruction priority or what the model refuses. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, mistral.ai's security.txt gives a security contact and a submission policy, as read for the Mistral Large 4 listing (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 60.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 65

File safety earns 15, safetensors and GGUF only but with 10 off because the documented commands pass trust_remote_code and load a parser plugin from the repository. Provenance earns 15, files in NVIDIA's linked organisation with a hash for every file. Safety evaluation earns 0, no results. Agent guidance earns 10, subcards that name prompt injection and the safeguards to add, without an instruction hierarchy. Licence risk keeps all 15, since the switch to the Nemotron licence happened on release day. The security programme earns 10 for the reporting route on the card and NVIDIA's public bulletins.

Agent interface Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +5

Devstral Small 2 65

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (11,362 characters), with the tokenizer's tekken file for mistral-common. Tool-calling format 25, the card documents tools in the OpenAI function format with an example, names the mistral tool-call parser with auto tool choice for vLLM, shows the same for SGLang, and ships test prompts with the expected tool-call output. Trained tool calling 10, the card says the model excels at using tools, and its tests cover one tool call and calls made one at a time in sequence. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained answers for this model. Reasoning control 0, no reasoning mode is documented, and a June 2026 commit removed stray thinking tokens from the files. Context 10, 256K tokens per the card, served at 262,144 in its vLLM command. 20 + 25 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 65.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 70

The chat template earns 20, a Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 10 of 25, as only the template shows the format and the parser name appears only in a serving command. Trained tool calling earns 20, with tool-use benchmarks and data and several calls per turn in the template. Structured output earns 0, not claimed or documented. Reasoning control earns 10, thinking off per request with a parser that returns the reasoning apart. Context earns 10 for 262,144 tokens.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDevstral Small 2Nemotron 3 Nano 4BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259090even
Risk20%206065Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +5
Agent interface10%106570Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +5
Documentation and upkeep10%104655Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +9
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 56.8/100

Facts side by side

FactDevstral Small 2Nemotron 3 Nano 4B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorMistral AINVIDIA
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0NVIDIA Nemotron Open Model License
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-152026-03-16
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone3.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Devstral Small 2

The easy one to run: a 24B coding agent under Apache 2.0 that five runtimes carry, 15 GB at 4 bits in Ollama, with a 256K context, image input and well-documented tool calling. It's eleven months old, calls tools one at a time, has no reasoning mode, and its card says nothing on limits, safety or data.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

A 3.97-billion-parameter reasoning model with trained tool calls, a thinking switch and 262,144 tokens of context, which runs in about 4 GB from NVIDIA's own GGUF. The main risks are serving commands that run repository code, no published safety results, a tool format left to the template, and files unchanged and questions unanswered since March 2026.

Before you call either

Devstral Small 2

  1. ollama run devstral-small-2 is the quickest start, at 15 GB
  2. On vLLM pass --tool-call-parser mistral --enable-auto-tool-choice
  3. Send the system prompt from CHAT_SYSTEM_PROMPT.txt in the repository. The card says results depend on it
  4. Use a low temperature. The repository's default is 0.15
  5. Plan for one tool call per turn
  6. The same model is on our Mistral API listing if you'd rather not host it

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

  1. Quickest start is ollama run nemotron-3-nano:4b, a 2.8 GB build
  2. With llama.cpp use llama-server -hf nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B-GGUF --jinja, NVIDIA's own Q4_K_M file
  3. With vLLM, download nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py from the repository first and serve with --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --reasoning-parser-plugin nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py --reasoning-parser nano_v3
  4. The card's Transformers snippet names nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B, use nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B-BF16 instead
  5. Thinking is on by default. Pass enable_thinking=False to the chat template for short tasks
  6. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 for reasoning and temperature 0.6 with top_p 0.95 for tool calling, as the card says
  7. It's tuned for English only, and validate JSON yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Devstral Small 2 or Nemotron 3 Nano 4B?

Devstral Small 2 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Nemotron 3 Nano 4B's 56.8 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. Nemotron 3 Nano 4B leads on risk, agent interface and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Devstral Small 2 or Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

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