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

Kimi K3 vs Nanbeige4.3-33B

Kimi K3 scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Nanbeige4.3-33B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Nanbeige4.3-33B leads on reach, 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 3341 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Kimi K3 B

Best for Teams with a multi-node GPU cluster who want an open 1M-context agent model for long coding and research work

Ahead on

  • Risk, 65 against 60

Watch for

1,561 GB of files at its smallest publisher build, far beyond any single machine

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

  • Reach, 55 against 50
  • Agent interface, 85 against 65
  • Documentation and upkeep, 56 against 41

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runKimi K3Nanbeige4.3-33BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%255055Nanbeige4.3-33B +5
Risk20%206560Kimi K3 +5
Agent interface10%106585Nanbeige4.3-33B +20
Documentation and upkeep10%104156Nanbeige4.3-33B +15
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 62.4/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactKimi K3Nanbeige4.3-33B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorMoonshot AINanbeige LLM Lab (BOSS Zhipin)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceKimi K3 License (modified MIT)Apache-2.0 (Hub metadata only; the repository has no LICENSE file)
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-09-022026-10-24
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 reviews2.3/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Kimi K3

Kimi K3 is a 2.8T multimodal agent model with a 1M-token context, parallel tool calls and per-request effort, for long coding and research sessions. Its 1,561 GB of files need a multi-node GPU cluster, so most agents will call a hosted copy. The main risks are Moonshot's Python running at load and prompt time, and no answers in its repository.

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

Kimi K3

  1. Start it with SGLang on a node of 8 B300s, sglang serve --trust-remote-code --model-path moonshotai/Kimi-K3 --tp-size 8 --context-length 65536 --mem-fraction-static 0.82 --reasoning-parser kimi_k3 --tool-call-parser kimi_k3 --port 30000
  2. Use the kimi_k3 tool-call and reasoning parsers in vLLM or SGLang, and validate tool-call arguments against the schema, since vLLM's recipe says K3 sometimes emits a format its parser doesn't expect
  3. Pass the whole assistant message back every turn, reasoning_content and tool_calls included, or output becomes unstable
  4. Thinking is always on; set reasoning_effort to low or high when max is too slow
  5. Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0, with top-p 0.95 for single-step tasks and 1.0 for agentic ones
  6. Don't hand an ongoing session from another model to K3, and state boundaries in the system prompt, since Moonshot warns it can act on its own when intent is unclear
  7. Without the hardware, call it through Moonshot's API or an inference provider listed on its Hugging Face page

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, Kimi K3 or Nanbeige4.3-33B?

Kimi K3 scores 62.4 (B) on agent readiness against Nanbeige4.3-33B's 61 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Nanbeige4.3-33B leads on reach, agent interface and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Kimi K3 or Nanbeige4.3-33B

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.