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

gpt-oss-20b vs Nanbeige4.3-33B

gpt-oss-20b scores 69.9 (B) on agent readiness against Nanbeige4.3-33B's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Nanbeige4.3-33B 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 3341 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

gpt-oss-20b B

Best for Local agents on a 24 GB GPU or Mac that want a permissive licence, wide runtime support and documented structured output, one tool call at a time

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 55
  • Risk, 85 against 60
  • Agent interface, 90 against 85

Watch for

No reply from OpenAI to any discussion since August 2025, and template reports wait unanswered

Nanbeige4.3-33B C

Best for Agents with about 96 GB of GPU memory, or the 128 GB reference machine, that want an Apache-tagged 33B model for long coding and tool loops and can wait for independent results.

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 56 against 42

Watch for

No independent benchmark result yet; every agentic number on the card is Nanbeige's own run

Score by category

CategoryWeight this rungpt-oss-20bNanbeige4.3-33BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259055gpt-oss-20b +35
Risk20%208560gpt-oss-20b +25
Agent interface10%109085gpt-oss-20b +5
Documentation and upkeep10%104256Nanbeige4.3-33B +14
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 69.9/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

Factgpt-oss-20bNanbeige4.3-33B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorOpenAINanbeige LLM Lab (BOSS Zhipin)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0 (Hub metadata only; the repository has no LICENSE file)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2025-08-262026-10-24
Terms last updatedno document linkedno 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 reviews3.5/5 (4)none

Verdicts

gpt-oss-20b

gpt-oss-20b is a cousin for reasoning, coding and single tool calls with structured output, under plain Apache 2.0. It needs about 17 GB with a working context, and five inference providers serve it. The main risks are that it trails o4-mini at keeping system instructions above user ones, and OpenAI hasn't answered a report since August 2025.

Nanbeige4.3-33B

A dense 33B Llama-architecture cousin for long agentic coding and office tasks, with per-request thinking, XML tool calls that stock vLLM and SGLang parse, and 512K of context. It needs about 96 GB at BF16, as Nanbeige ships no quantised build. Its agentic results so far are Nanbeige's own, with no safety results, training data notes or licence file.

Before you call either

gpt-oss-20b

  1. Start it with ollama run gpt-oss:20b (the build that fits the reference machine), or vllm serve openai/gpt-oss-20b with a current vLLM release rather than the card's pinned vllm==0.10.1+gptoss wheel
  2. Use the harmony format through the chat template or openai-harmony; OpenAI says the model doesn't work correctly without it
  3. Parse tool calls and reasoning with openai-harmony; calls come on the commentary channel ending in <|call|>, reasoning on the analysis channel
  4. Set effort with Reasoning: high (or low, medium) in the system message, or reasoning_effort in the template; medium is the default
  5. Ask for JSON by putting a JSON Schema under # Response Formats in the developer message
  6. Drop earlier reasoning after a final answer but pass it back after tool calls, and don't show the analysis channel to users
  7. Expect one tool call per turn; run several in sequence rather than in parallel

Nanbeige4.3-33B

  1. Serve with vllm serve Nanbeige/Nanbeige4.3-33B --enable-auto-tool-choice --reasoning-parser qwen3 --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, as the card says, or SGLang with the same two parsers
  2. Keep tool_call_format at its default xml, since qwen3_coder parses that format; the json option writes Hermes-style JSON calls, which need a different parser such as vLLM's hermes
  3. Pass chat_template_kwargs {"preserve_thinking": true} for multi-turn tool use and coding, and {"enable_thinking": false} to skip reasoning, as the card recommends
  4. Use temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and up to 65,536 new tokens for agent work, and temperature 0.6 for reasoning and chat, per the card
  5. Send your own system prompt, since without one the template injects a Chinese identity line, or a Chinese tool-expert prompt when tools are passed
  6. Send one system message at the start only, as the template raises an error for a later one
  7. In plain Transformers pass use_cache=True to generate, since config.json and generation_config.json set it false; trust_remote_code isn't needed

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, gpt-oss-20b or Nanbeige4.3-33B?

gpt-oss-20b scores 69.9 (B) on agent readiness against Nanbeige4.3-33B's 61 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Nanbeige4.3-33B leads on documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with gpt-oss-20b or Nanbeige4.3-33B

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