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

Laguna M.1 vs ZAYA1-8B

ZAYA1-8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 56.7 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Laguna M.1 leads on agent interface. 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

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.

Ahead on

  • Agent interface, 85 against 60

Watch for

The smallest build needs about 167 GB, more than a 128 GB machine

ZAYA1-8B C

Best for People who want a small, fast reasoning model for maths and code and can live without tool calling

Ahead on

  • Reach, 80 against 70
  • Documentation and upkeep, 50 against 36

Watch for

Tool calling needs a parser that only Zyphra's vLLM fork has

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.

Agent interface Laguna M.1 +25

Laguna M.1 85

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, the card shows how tools go in and calls come back and names the poolside_v1 parser. Trained tool calling 20, several calls a turn. Structured output 0, not documented. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking per request with the reasoning in reasoning_content. Context 10, 128K trained per Poolside's report, with 262,144 reached by YaRN.

ZAYA1-8B 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (10,700 characters). Tool-calling format 10, only the template and a fork say it. Trained tool calling 10, the template takes tools and renders calls, and the card recommends settings for agent use, but it doesn't say the model was trained for tool calling or for several calls in a turn, so the lower band. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output. Reasoning control 10, the template has an enable_thinking switch, and the card names the qwen3 reasoning parser, which returns the reasoning apart from the answer. Context 10, 131,072 positions in config.json, for an architecture Zyphra trained end to end, so the config is the model's own. 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 60.

Documentation and upkeep ZAYA1-8B +14

Laguna M.1 36

Model card 11 of 20, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are there, limitations, languages and a cut-off aren't. Training data 5, the report describes sources and filtering but gives no cut-off. Last change 10, 14 July 2026, 113 days ago. Responsiveness 0, the one discussion's only reply is from someone outside the poolside organisation. Version policy 5, a first open release with nothing replaced. File health 5, generation config and template disagree on the thinking default and the FP8 build's Docker files name different image tags.

ZAYA1-8B 50

Model card 5, Intended use and the parameter counts are on the card. Training data 0, Nothing on the card about the training data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 26 June 2026 (the checkpoint reshaped for Transformers), 137 days before this check, and the quantised repositories on 2 July, 131 days. Responsiveness 20, Of the 16 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 May to 14 August 2026), 10 have a reply from a Zyphra member, which is most. Version policy 5, the original checkpoint is kept as ZAYA1-8B-legacy and the card says so at the top, without a date. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture after the reshape. 5 + 0 + 10 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 50.

Reach ZAYA1-8B +10

Laguna M.1 70

Memory 5 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build is Poolside's 139.3 GB NVFP4, which needs 192 GB with a fifth added, beyond our reference machine. Runtimes 25, released llama.cpp, Ollama (through the llama.cpp release it pins), vLLM, SGLang and Transformers run the laguna architecture. Builds 15, FP8 and NVFP4 from Poolside. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing binding added. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, no provider is mapped on the Hub and Poolside's API docs name only S 2.1.

ZAYA1-8B 80

Memory 30, the smallest build from Zyphra is the MXFP4-Experts repository, 5.85 GB, and 5.85 GB × 1.2 = 7.0 GB, within 16 GB. Runtimes 10, Released Transformers 5.22.2 has the zaya model and SGLang 0.5.23 has srt/models/zaya.py. Builds 15, Quantised builds from Zyphra at two precisions, FP8 and MXFP4 for the experts, each in its own repository. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the model and its builds on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API. Zyphra's site lists a cloud product for its open models, which wasn't checked for this model. 30 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 80.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLaguna M.1ZAYA1-8BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%257080ZAYA1-8B +10
Risk20%205555even
Agent interface10%108560Laguna M.1 +25
Documentation and upkeep10%103650ZAYA1-8B +14
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 56.7/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactLaguna M.1ZAYA1-8B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorPoolsideZyphra
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-142026-07-02
Terms last updated2026-07-21no document linked
Privacy policy last updated2026-07-21no document linked
Customer content may train modelsyes, with an opt-outnot read yet
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot read yet
Terms or service can change without noticeyesnot read yet
Arbitration or class-action waiveryesnot read yet
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Laguna M.1

ZAYA1-8B

No score change since it was listed.

Verdicts

Laguna M.1

A large open-weight coding and agent model under plain Apache 2.0, for teams with a multi-GPU server. Its smallest build needs about 167 GB, more than a 128 GB machine. Released llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers code runs the architecture. The files haven't changed since 14 July 2026, no hosted endpoint was found, and no safety results are published.

ZAYA1-8B

A small reasoning model trained from scratch by one lab, with a clean licence, 4-bit and FP8 builds and a team that answers questions. It's the hardest of the small models to run: its own architecture, a card that points at forks, and tool calling that needs a parser no release has. Little on limits, data or safety.

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

ZAYA1-8B

  1. Use it for reasoning, maths and code. Don't count on tool calling outside Zyphra's vLLM fork
  2. Run it with Transformers 5.22.2 or SGLang 0.5.23, which have the model built in
  3. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 in general, and temperature 0.6 for agent and code work
  4. Download Zyphra/ZAYA1-8B, not the legacy repository, for the released runtimes
  5. The quantised repositories have no licence tag. The main one is Apache 2.0

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Laguna M.1 or ZAYA1-8B?

ZAYA1-8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Laguna M.1's 56.7 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Laguna M.1 leads on agent interface.

Other comparisons with Laguna M.1 or ZAYA1-8B

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