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

Devstral Small 2 vs Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2

Devstral Small 2 and Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 leads on 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

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 85
  • Risk, 60 against 50
  • Agent interface, 65 against 60

Watch for

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

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 C

Best for Hobbyist and research agents that want a Qwen3.8-27B tuned for shorter reasoning, for local coding loops on a 24 GB GPU.

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 51 against 46

Watch for

Published from a personal account, with no organisation, security contact or safety evaluation

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.

Risk Devstral Small 2 +10

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.

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 50

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, nothing from the repository runs. Provenance 5 of 15, the files are on a personal account with no site or organisation behind it, though every file has a checksum. Safety evaluation 0, the card says none was done. Agent guidance 5, general cautions about loops and tool reliability. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0. Security programme 0, no contact or policy.

Reach Devstral Small 2 +5

Devstral Small 2 90

Memory 25, the smallest build at 4 bits from a runtime's own library is Ollama's devstral-small-2 at Q4_K_M, 15 GB, and 15 GB × 1.2 = 18 GB, within 24 GB. Mistral's own FP8 files are 25.79 GB. Runtimes 25, Released vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 have the mistral3 model, llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture with a GGUF from its own organisation, and Ollama's library has devstral-small-2. Builds 10, one quantised precision from Mistral, the FP8 weights it releases. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and text, an OSI licence with nothing added. 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, Mistral's own API serves Devstral Small 2: the card says the model is available through its API and points there when a local runtime underperforms. 25 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 90.

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 85

Memory 25 of 30, Jackrong's IQ4_XS GGUF is 15.4 GB, about 18.5 GB with a fifth added, which fits 24 GB. Runtimes 20, it keeps Qwen3.8-27B's architecture, which released vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp run, while Ollama's entry is the base's, not this model's. Builds 15, GGUFs at many precisions from 4-bit to 8-bit and BF16. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 through the chain. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, no provider serves it.

Agent interface Devstral Small 2 +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.

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 60

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10 of 25, only the template shows the Hermes-style JSON calls, which differ from the base's format. Trained tool calling 20, several calls a turn. Structured output 0, not documented. Reasoning control 0, the switches are documented but not where the reasoning comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens from the base.

Documentation and upkeep Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 +5

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.

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 51

Model card 11 of 20, missing architecture, context and a cut-off. Training data 5, a description with no cut-off. Last change 15, the files went up on 21 September 2026, 43 days ago, with no commit since. Responsiveness 10, Jackrong answered 2 of 8 discussions across the model's two repositories. Version policy 5, the first Flash release stays up without a dated note. File health 5, no LICENSE file, an experiment note in the template and open reports of looping and a grammar failure.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runDevstral Small 2Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259085Devstral Small 2 +5
Risk20%206050Devstral Small 2 +10
Agent interface10%106560Devstral Small 2 +5
Documentation and upkeep10%104651Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactDevstral Small 2Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorMistral AIJackrong
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0 (metadata only, no LICENSE file); built on Qwen3.8-27B under Apache 2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-152026-09-21
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2.5/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

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.

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2

A Qwen3.8-27B cousin tuned to think less per turn in long agent loops, with an MTP head for speculative decoding in llama.cpp. It fits 24 GB with Jackrong's 4-bit GGUF. The risks are one person's experimental release with no safety work, training traces taken from Claude and GPT, and a tool format that differs from Qwen's.

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

Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2

  1. Quickest start is llama-server -hf Jackrong/Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja, about 17 GB, and add mmproj-F32.gguf for images
  2. The card's tests used Q5_K_M with the bundled MTP head and --spec-type draft-mtp in llama.cpp
  3. The template asks for tool calls as JSON inside tool_call tags, so use a Hermes-style parser (vLLM's hermes), not Qwen3.8's qwen3_coder
  4. For coding the card recommends enable_thinking true, reasoning_effort xhigh and temperature 0.3, which you must pass yourself, since generation_config.json says 1.0
  5. reasoning_effort takes xhigh (default), medium or low, and any other value makes the template raise an error
  6. Earlier reasoning stays in the context unless preserve_thinking is false
  7. Cap max_tokens, since a report says it loops more than V1

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Devstral Small 2 or Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2?

Devstral Small 2 and Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2 leads on documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Devstral Small 2 or Qwopus3.8-27B-Flash-V2

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