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

Laguna M.1 vs Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B scores 66.2 (B) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 55.5 (C), and leads in every scored category. 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

Laguna M.1 C

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

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B B

Best for Agents on a 128 GB unified machine or Blackwell GPUs that want a long-context, tool-calling reasoning model with documented training data

Ahead on

  • Capability, 54 against 46
  • Reach, 75 against 65
  • Risk, 65 against 55
  • Agent interface, 90 against 85
  • Documentation and upkeep, 65 against 36

Watch for

The card's serving commands pass --trust-remote-code

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLaguna M.1Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12BEdge
Capability35%354654Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B +8
Reach25%256575Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B +10
Risk20%205565Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B +10
Agent interface10%108590Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B +5
Documentation and upkeep10%103665Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B +29
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 55.5/100B 66.2/100

Facts side by side

FactLaguna M.1Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorPoolsideNVIDIA
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 release2026-07-142026-03-11
Terms last updatedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno 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 reviews2.5/5 (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.

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

A long-context agent cousin with trained parallel tool calls, a reasoning switch and a full account of its training data, under a free commercial licence. It needs about 100 GB of GPU memory, a 128 GB unified machine or Blackwell hardware for NVIDIA's NVFP4. The main risks are serving commands that run repository code and no published safety results.

Before you call either

Laguna M.1

  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
  2. Thinking is off in the template unless you pass enable_thinking true or start the server with --default-chat-template-kwargs '{"enable_thinking": true}', which Poolside recommends for agentic coding
  3. Pass earlier reasoning back as reasoning_content in the history, since the card says reasoning may stop in later steps if it's dropped
  4. Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0 and top_k 20
  5. The FP8 build's Docker image and serve.sh predate upstream support and set a 4,096-token context, so prefer a released vLLM
  6. It doesn't fit our 128 GB reference machine at any published precision
  7. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

  1. On the reference machine start it with ollama run nemotron-3-super, the 87 GB q4_K_M build, the only one that fits (about 104 GB with the margin)
  2. Raise the Strix Halo GPU memory limit first with amd-ttm --set 100, since the default of about 62.8 GiB is far below what it needs
  3. With vLLM serve it with --reasoning-parser nemotron_v3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder (SGLang uses --reasoning-parser nemotron_3)
  4. Use temperature=1.0 and top_p=0.95 for every task, as the card says
  5. Thinking is on by default. Pass enable_thinking: false or low_effort: true in chat_template_kwargs for short tasks
  6. For coding agents pass force_nonempty_content: true in chat_template_kwargs, so a cut-off reasoning trace still returns content
  7. Raise context past 262,144 only with the card's flags (VLLM_ALLOW_LONG_MAX_MODEL_LEN=1, --max-model-len 1048576)

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Laguna M.1 or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B?

Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B scores 66.2 (B) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 55.5 (C), and leads in every scored category.

Other comparisons with Laguna M.1 or Nemotron 3 Super 120B A12B

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