Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
Laguna M.1 vs Laguna XS 2.1
Laguna XS 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 55.5 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. 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
Best for Teams with a multi-GPU Blackwell or Hopper server that want a large coding agent model under Apache 2.0.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
The smallest build needs about 167 GB, more than a 128 GB machine
Best for Agents that want a fast local coding model on a 32 GB GPU or Mac, with tool calling and a permissive licence.
Ahead on
- Reach, 85 against 65
- Documentation and upkeep, 46 against 36
Watch for
No reply from Poolside to any discussion, including reports about the tokenizer and remote code
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Laguna M.1 | Laguna XS 2.1 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 65 | 85 | Laguna XS 2.1 +20 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 55 | 55 | even |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 85 | 85 | even |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 36 | 46 | Laguna XS 2.1 +10 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 55.5/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Laguna M.1 | Laguna XS 2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Poolside | Poolside |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-14 | 2026-08-19 |
| Terms last updated | ||
| Privacy policy last updated | ||
| 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 reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | 2.8/5 (4) |
Verdicts
Laguna M.1
A large coding and agent cousin under plain Apache 2.0, for agents with a multi-GPU server. Its smallest build needs about 167 GB, more than a 128 GB machine, and no local runtime library packages it. The main risks are no upkeep since July, no hosted fallback shown today, no safety results, and repository code on the SGLang route.
Laguna XS 2.1
A small coding and agent cousin with 3B active parameters, so it's quick on modest hardware. Poolside's 4-bit GGUF, also Ollama's default, needs about 24 GB, and every major runtime runs it. The main risks are that nobody at Poolside answers its discussions, there are no safety results, and the SGLang route runs repository code.
Before you call either
Laguna M.1
- Run the NVFP4 build on Blackwell GPUs with
vllm serve poolside/Laguna-M.1-NVFP4 --tensor-parallel-size 2 --tool-call-parser poolside_v1 --reasoning-parser poolside_v1 --enable-auto-tool-choice, on vLLM 0.21.0 or later - Thinking is off in the template unless you pass
enable_thinkingtrue or start the server with--default-chat-template-kwargs '{"enable_thinking": true}', which Poolside recommends for agentic coding - Pass earlier reasoning back as
reasoning_contentin the history, since the card says reasoning may stop in later steps if it's dropped - Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0 and top_k 20
- The FP8 build's Docker image and serve.sh predate upstream support and set a 4,096-token context, so prefer a released vLLM
- It doesn't fit our 128 GB reference machine at any published precision
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented
Laguna XS 2.1
- Quickest start is
ollama run laguna-xs-2.1, 20 GB of files, the same Q4_K_M as Poolside's GGUF - On our reference machine use
llama-server -hf poolside/Laguna-XS-2.1-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja -c 131072, from a llama.cpp release with the laguna architecture (b11772 has it), or BF16 with vLLM (66.9 GB) - With vLLM use
--tool-call-parser poolside_v1 --reasoning-parser poolside_v1 --enable-auto-tool-choice, on a build with vllm-project/vllm#47311, or--tool-call-parser glm47on older builds - Thinking is off in the template unless you pass
enable_thinkingtrue or start the server with--default-chat-template-kwargs '{"enable_thinking": true}', which Poolside recommends for agentic coding - Pass earlier reasoning back as
reasoning_contentin the history, since the card says reasoning may stop in later steps if it's dropped - Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0 and top_k 20
- The card warns that Ollama on Apple Silicon may return empty output until llama.cpp#25389 ships
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Laguna M.1 or Laguna XS 2.1?
Laguna XS 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 55.5 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/laguna-m-1-vs-laguna-xs-2-1.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/laguna-m-1.json·/api/v1/tools/laguna-xs-2-1.json - From a terminal
anchor compare laguna-m-1 laguna-xs-2-1(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "laguna-m-1", "b": "laguna-xs-2-1"}at/mcp, no key