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

Laguna S 2.1 vs Ling-3.1-flash-1019

Laguna S 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.1-flash-1019's 54.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Ling-3.1-flash-1019 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 4969 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Laguna S 2.1 C

Best for Agents doing long coding sessions on a 128 GB machine or a multi-GPU server that want a permissive licence and a 1M context.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 75 against 60
  • Risk, 55 against 45
  • Agent interface, 85 against 60

Watch for

No reply from Poolside to any of 34 discussions, many of them reports about thinking and tool calls

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 C

Best for Teams with a multi-GPU server that want an MIT-licensed flagship for long agent runs and coding

Ahead on

  • Documentation and upkeep, 56 against 41

Watch for

574 GB in FP8 with no smaller build from inclusionAI, so no single machine under 690 GB of GPU memory runs it

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 S 2.1 +25

Laguna S 2.1 85

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, the card names the poolside_v1 parser for three runtimes and Poolside's post shows the call format, a judgement call since the worked example sits on the XS 2.1 card. Trained tool calling 20, several calls a turn. Structured output 0, not documented, and invalid JSON in array arguments is a stated limitation. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking per request with the reasoning in reasoning_content. Context 10, 1M tokens trained per Poolside's build cards.

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (6,042 characters), which handles tools, the thinking switch and preserved reasoning. Tool-calling format 10, only the template says how tools are declared (JSON in <tools>) and how calls come back (<tool_call>name with <arg_key> and <arg_value> pairs). Trained tool calling 20, the template tells the model it may call one or more functions and loops over every entry in an assistant message's tool_calls, and the card reports gains on agentic benchmarks, AA-Briefcase and AutomationBench-AA among them. Structured output 0, the card doesn't document JSON or JSON Schema output. Reasoning control 0, the card documents turning thinking on or off per request with chat_template_kwargs enable_thinking, and names the ling3 reasoning parser, but doesn't say where the reasoning text comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens natively in config.json (max_position_embeddings 262144, rope_scaling null) and per SGLang's cookbook. 20 + 10 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 60.

Reach Laguna S 2.1 +15

Laguna S 2.1 75

Memory 10 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build is Ollama's 66 GB MLX nvfp4, which needs 96 GB with a fifth added and fits our 128 GB reference machine. Runtimes 25, released llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers all run the laguna architecture. Builds 15, Poolside publishes FP8, INT4, NVFP4, MLX and GGUF builds. Terms 10, OpenMDW-1.1 is permissive but not OSI-approved. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 5, Poolside's own API serves it and Featherless AI hosts it, though Poolside's OpenRouter endpoints have expired.

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 60

Memory 0, inclusionAI's only build is the FP8 release at 573.78 GB, × 1.2 = 688.5 GB, above 256 GB, and no runtime's library has a build. Runtimes 25, Released model code in Transformers 5.22.2 (bailing_hybrid), vLLM 0.33.0 (BailingMoeV3ForCausalLM, with ling3 tool and reasoning parsers), SGLang 0.5.23 (bailing_moe_v3.py, its bailing_hybrid config and MTP module) and llama.cpp b12242 (bailingmoe3), and Ollama, credited through its pinned llama.cpp as on the Ling-3.0-tiny listing: v0.40.16 sets LLAMA_CPP_VERSION to b12177. Builds 10, the release is FP8, the one quantised precision inclusionAI publishes for it. Terms 15, MIT in the card's metadata, with no use policy or other terms added on the card or in the repository. Download 10, the Hub API's model info gives gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and no terms to accept. Hosted 0, the Hub API's provider mapping is empty for this repository on 10 November 2026. 0 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 60.

Documentation and upkeep Ling-3.1-flash-1019 +15

Laguna S 2.1 41

Model card 11 of 20, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are on the card, limitations, languages and a cut-off aren't. Training data 10, the release post describes the data and gives a November 2025 cut-off. Last change 15, 25 August 2026, 70 days back. Responsiveness 0, Poolside answered none of the 34 discussions. Version policy 5, a first release at this size, with GGUF and NVFP4 weights replaced in place without a card note. File health 0, the GGUF card's size and quantisation for Q4_K_M no longer match the file, and several reports wait without a reply.

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 56

Model card 11, Intended use (complex reasoning, multi-step tasks and agentic workflows), architecture, parameters (560B total, 25B active) and context (1M claimed) are on the card. Training data 15, the training-content summary the card links names the source categories (Common Crawl and other public datasets, commercially licensed data, the Ant Spider crawler, synthetic data), the size band (over 10 trillion text tokens), data collected up to about July 2026 and the filtering, without listing datasets with sizes. Last change 20, the newest commit, on 4 November 2026, edited the card, six days before this check, and the files went up on 27 October. Responsiveness 0, Neither of the 2 discussions that aren't pull requests (both opened on 27 October 2026) has a reply from an inclusionAI member. Version policy 5, the update went into a repository of its own and Ling-3.1-flash and Ling 3.0 stay in theirs. File health 5, the card states a 1M-token context while config.json gives 262,144 with no rope scaling, and its serve commands name the earlier repository as the model path. 11 + 15 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 56.

Risk Laguna S 2.1 +10

Laguna S 2.1 55

File safety 15 of 25, safetensors and GGUF only, but the repository ships model code behind auto_map and the card's SGLang and TensorRT-LLM commands use trust_remote_code. Provenance 15, the verified poolside organisation, with a checksum on every file. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 5, general cautions only. Licence risk 15, OpenMDW-1.1 has no use policy, threshold or revocation clause. Security programme 5, a signed security.txt and a security contact on the card, with no public advisories found.

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 45

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25), less 10 because the card's documented vLLM command passes --trust-remote-code, which runs the repository's configuration_bailing_moe_v3.py, since vLLM 0.33.0 registers no bailing_hybrid config of its own. Provenance 15, files in the inclusionAI organisation that inclusion-ai.org links to, per the Ling-3.0-tiny listing (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results for the model on its card or in the training-content summary. Agent guidance 0, the card has nothing on prompt injection, refusals or safeguards, and inclusionAI publishes no guardrail probe for this model as it did for Ling 3.0. Licence risk 15, MIT with no use policy, no field-of-use limits, no threshold and no clause letting inclusionAI change or revoke it. Security programme 0, www.inclusion-ai.org answers 404 for security.txt on 10 November 2026, and the Ling-3.0-tiny listing found no SECURITY.md or disclosure policy in the inclusionAI .github repository. 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 45.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLaguna S 2.1Ling-3.1-flash-1019Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%257560Laguna S 2.1 +15
Risk20%205545Laguna S 2.1 +10
Agent interface10%108560Laguna S 2.1 +25
Documentation and upkeep10%104156Ling-3.1-flash-1019 +15
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 54.8/100

Facts side by side

FactLaguna S 2.1Ling-3.1-flash-1019
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorPoolsideinclusionAI (Ant Group)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceOpenMDW-1.1MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-08-192026-11-04
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 reviews2.3/5 (4)none

Verdicts

Laguna S 2.1

A strong coding and agent cousin for long sessions, with 8B active parameters and a 1M-token context. At 4-bit it needs a 96 to 128 GB machine, tight on a 128 GB one. The main risks are that nobody at Poolside answers its many reports, there are no safety results, and a build card misdescribes its file.

Ling-3.1-flash-1019

inclusionAI's newest flagship, a 560B hybrid mixture of experts under plain MIT that vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp run in released versions. It ships only as 574 GB of FP8, so it needs a multi-GPU server. The card overstates the context, documents little about tool calls, and has no safety results.

Before you call either

Laguna S 2.1

  1. Quickest start is ollama run laguna-s-2.1, 96 GB for the default Q4_K_M, or the 66 GB nvfp4 tag on Apple Silicon
  2. On our reference machine try llama-server -hf poolside/Laguna-S-2.1-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja -c 65536, from a llama.cpp release with the laguna architecture (b11772 has it). The 96 GB file leaves little room for context in 107.4 GB
  3. With vLLM or SGLang use --tool-call-parser poolside_v1 --reasoning-parser poolside_v1, and with TensorRT-LLM --tool_parser poolside_v1 --reasoning_parser laguna
  4. Thinking is on by default in the template, pass chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false to turn it off, and keep reasoning_content from earlier turns
  5. The GGUFs ship set to 262,144 tokens. For 1M with llama.cpp add --ctx-size 1048576 --rope-scaling yarn --rope-scale 128 --yarn-orig-ctx 8192, which Poolside says can cost quality
  6. Sampling per the generation config is temperature 1.0 and top_k 20, and Poolside suggests temperature 0.7 and top_p 0.95 at 1M
  7. Expect occasional tool-schema slips in harnesses unlike Poolside's own, and validate JSON arguments, which Poolside lists as known limitations

Ling-3.1-flash-1019

  1. Serve it with SGLang 0.5.23 or later on 8 H200 or 4 GB300 GPUs, per the card, and use this repository's name as the model path, not the earlier one the card's command shows
  2. With vLLM pass --trust-remote-code, --tool-call-parser ling3 and --reasoning-parser ling3
  3. Set chat_template_kwargs enable_thinking false for direct answers. Reasoning comes back in reasoning_content per SGLang's cookbook
  4. Plan on 262,144 tokens of context. The 1M figure needs the YaRN override in SGLang's cookbook
  5. Use temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20, per the card
  6. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Laguna S 2.1 or Ling-3.1-flash-1019?

Laguna S 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.1-flash-1019's 54.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. Ling-3.1-flash-1019 leads on documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Laguna S 2.1 or Ling-3.1-flash-1019

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