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

Laguna XS 2.1 vs Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B

Laguna XS 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B's 52.1 (D), and leads in 3 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 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

Laguna XS 2.1 C

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, 80 against 55
  • Agent interface, 85 against 50
  • Documentation and upkeep, 46 against 41

Watch for

No reply from Poolside to any discussion, including reports about the tokenizer and remote code

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B D

Best for Agent builders who want to train or test an agent against simulated tools, terminals, browsers and phones on a 128 GB machine

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

Not a general assistant, and the card doesn't describe using it to call tools

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 XS 2.1 +35

Laguna XS 2.1 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 for three runtimes. Trained tool calling 20, the template renders 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.

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B 50

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository, the same as the template in tokenizer_config.json. Tool-calling format 10, only the template says how tools are declared and how calls come back. Trained tool calling 10, the template renders several tool_call blocks in one turn, but the card presents the model as a simulator of what tools and environments return, not as a tool caller. Structured output 0, no JSON or JSON Schema output documented for the model. Reasoning control 0, the card says thinking is on by default and names the qwen3 reasoning parser, but doesn't say how to turn thinking off or budget it. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native per the card and the text config. 20 + 10 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 50.

Reach Laguna XS 2.1 +25

Laguna XS 2.1 80

Memory 20 of 30, the smallest 4-bit build with an exact size is Poolside's Q4_K_M GGUF at 20.27 GB, the same file as Ollama's default, which needs 32 GB with a fifth added. 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 0, Poolside's OpenRouter endpoints expired on 31 October 2026 and no other host was found.

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B 55

Memory 10, Alibaba's only build is the BF16 safetensors, 69.32 GB, and 69.32 GB × 1.2 = 83.2 GB, above 64 GB and inside the reference machine's GPU share. Runtimes 20, Four released runtimes run the architecture, vLLM 0.33.0 (Qwen3_5MoeForConditionalGeneration), SGLang 0.5.23, Transformers 5.22.2 (qwen3_5_moe) and llama.cpp b12242 (its Qwen conversion code). Builds 0, Alibaba publishes the BF16 weights only. Terms 15, Apache 2.0, an OSI licence, in the metadata and as a LICENSE file, with no use policy or other terms added. Download 10, the repository isn't gated, so the files download with no account and no terms to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face lists no inference provider for the model (an empty provider mapping on 10 November 2026). 10 + 20 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 55.

Documentation and upkeep Laguna XS 2.1 +5

Laguna XS 2.1 46

Model card 11 of 20, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are there, limitations, languages and a cut-off aren't. Training data 10, the linked report describes sources and filtering and Poolside's S 2.1 post gives the shared November 2025 cut-off. Last change 15, 19 August 2026, 76 days back. Responsiveness 0, Poolside answered none of the 6 discussions. Version policy 5, XS.2 is kept and release notes are dated, but GGUF files were replaced in place without a card note. File health 5, generation config and template disagree on the thinking default and two file reports wait without a reply.

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B 41

Model card 11, the card gives intended use (simulating agent environments), architecture, parameters and context length. Training data 5, A general description without a cut-off, the three training stages and a statement that no outputs from external API services were included. Last change 10, the last commit was on 25 June 2026, an update to the card, 138 days before this check, past 90 days and within 180. Responsiveness 0, 10 discussions that aren't pull requests, opened between 24 June and 5 July 2026. Version policy 5, A first release, with nothing replaced. File health 10, Config, both copies of the template and the card agree on the architecture and the context. 11 + 5 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 41.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLaguna XS 2.1Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258055Laguna XS 2.1 +25
Risk20%205555even
Agent interface10%108550Laguna XS 2.1 +35
Documentation and upkeep10%104641Laguna XS 2.1 +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100D 52.1/100

Facts side by side

FactLaguna XS 2.1Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorPoolsideAlibaba (Qwen team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceOpenMDW-1.1Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-08-192026-06-25
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 reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

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.

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B

A specialist, not a chat model. It plays the environment an agent acts in, across seven domains, so you can train or test an agent without the real thing. Alibaba ships BF16 only, which fits a 128 GB machine, and hasn't answered a discussion on it or changed the files since June.

Before you call either

Laguna XS 2.1

  1. Quickest start is ollama run laguna-xs-2.1, 20 GB of files, the same Q4_K_M as Poolside's GGUF
  2. 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)
  3. 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 glm47 on older builds
  4. 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
  5. Pass earlier reasoning back as reasoning_content in the history, since the card says reasoning may stop in later steps if it's dropped
  6. Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0 and top_k 20
  7. The card warns that Ollama on Apple Silicon may return empty output until llama.cpp#25389 ships
  8. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented

Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B

  1. Use it as the environment, not the agent. Give it the domain's system prompt from Alibaba's GitHub repository, the history and the agent's action, and it returns the predicted observation
  2. With vLLM pass --language-model-only, or startup fails on the missing vision weights
  3. Use temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20, and allow up to 32,768 output tokens, as the card recommends
  4. Keep at least 128K of context, since the simulation depends on the history
  5. Thinking is on by default and comes back through the qwen3 reasoning parser
  6. A simulated observation is a prediction. Check anything that matters against the real environment

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Laguna XS 2.1 or Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B?

Laguna XS 2.1 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B's 52.1 (D), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.

Other comparisons with Laguna XS 2.1 or Qwen-AgentWorld-35B-A3B

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