Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
LFM2.5-2.6B vs LFM3-Omni-2B
LFM3-Omni-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against LFM2.5-2.6B's 50.3 (D), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. LFM2.5-2.6B leads on reach, risk, agent interface and 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
Best for Agents that want a small local helper for tool calls, extraction and RAG on a laptop, phone or CPU, at organisations under the licence's revenue threshold
Ahead on
- Reach, 90 against 80
- Risk, 50 against 40
- Agent interface, 75 against 70
- Documentation and upkeep, 57 against 49
Watch for
Liquid lists it as deprecated, replaced by LFM3-1.7B; deprecated models stay downloadable but get no further updates
Best for Voice and camera agents on a laptop or phone that want one small model for hearing, seeing, speaking and calling tools
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
Only llama.cpp and Ollama run it in a release
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.
Reach LFM2.5-2.6B +10
LFM2.5-2.6B 90
Memory earns the full 30, since Liquid's own 4-bit GGUF is 1.59 GB and fits 8 GB with room to spare. Runtimes earn 25, with the lfm2 architecture in released llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang and Transformers, and in Ollama through the llama.cpp version it pins. Builds earn 15 for Liquid's own GGUF, MLX and ONNX builds at many precisions. Terms earn 10, a custom licence that is free for commercial use under $10M of annual revenue. Download earns 10, with no gate. Hosted earns nothing, as Hugging Face maps no inference provider and Liquid's docs list no hosted API for it.
LFM3-Omni-2B 80
Memory 30, Liquid's Q4_K_M GGUF is 1.10 GB with its 0.29 GB projector file, and 1.39 GB × 1.2 = 1.7 GB, which fits 8 GB, well inside the 16 GB line. Runtimes 10, Released llama.cpp has the lfm3 architecture with the LFM3 vision and audio projectors and speech output (src/models/lfm3.cpp and tools/mtmd at b12242, with a realtime client example), and Ollama's library has an lfm3-omni entry. Builds 15, Liquid's GGUF repository holds Q4_0, Q4_K_M, Q8_0, F16 and BF16 files, and Liquid publishes 4-bit and 8-bit MLX builds and an ONNX repository, all in the LiquidAI organisation. Terms 10, the LFM Open License v1.0, a custom licence that lets anyone use it commercially for free below a threshold of $10M annual revenue. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the model and its GGUF, MLX and ONNX repositories on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, Liquid's own API lists lfm3-omni-2b among its models, so the publisher hosts it. 30 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 80.
Risk LFM2.5-2.6B +10
LFM2.5-2.6B 50
File safety earns 25, safetensors and GGUF only, and nothing from the repository runs to load it or build prompts. Provenance earns 15, files in the LiquidAI organisation Liquid links to, with a checksum for every file. Safety evaluation and agent guidance earn nothing, since Liquid publishes neither. Licence risk earns 10, losing 5 for the revenue threshold, with no use policy and no change since release. The security programme earns nothing, since no security.txt, disclosure policy or security contact was found.
LFM3-Omni-2B 40
File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, files in the LiquidAI organisation, which Liquid's docs page for the model and its blog post link to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card or in Liquid's blog post for the LFM3 family, neither of which mentions safety testing. Agent guidance 0, Nothing on prompt injection, an instruction hierarchy, what refusals cover or safeguards to add. Licence risk 10, 15 less 5 for the $10M annual revenue threshold on commercial use. Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw found. 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 10 + 0 = 40.
Documentation and upkeep LFM2.5-2.6B +8
LFM2.5-2.6B 57
The model card earns 17, with everything but a knowledge cut-off. Training data earns 5 for a general description without a cut-off. The last change earns 20, a card commit on 3 November 2026 naming LFM3-1.7B as the new version. Responsiveness earns 5, with Liquid replies in 2 of 16 discussions. Version policy earns 5, as Liquid now lists the model as deprecated with a replacement but no date. File health earns 5, since the files agree but a report about the card waits without a reply.
LFM3-Omni-2B 49
Model card 14, Intended use (one on-device model in place of separate speech recognition, vision, language and speech models), architecture, parameters (2.17B), context (32K) and the text and speech languages. Training data 5, the card has no training section. Last change 20, the last commit, on 3 November 2026, changed the card's navigation icons, seven days before this check, and the one before it, on 28 October, documented video frame rate and frame limits. Responsiveness 0, none of the 12 discussions that aren't pull requests (27 October to 9 November 2026) has a reply from a LiquidAI member. Version policy 5, LFM3 came out in new repositories and the LFM2.5 models stay in theirs. File health 5, the card gives a 32K context while config.json gives the language model 128,000 positions and Liquid's API lists 128,000 for the hosted model, so the card and the files don't agree on context. 14 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 49.
Agent interface LFM2.5-2.6B +5
LFM2.5-2.6B 75
The chat template earns 20 for chat_template.jinja in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 25, as Liquid's card and tool-use page say how tools go in and how calls come back, and its vLLM and SGLang pages name the lfm2 parser. Trained tool calling earns 20, with several calls in one Python list and agentic RL inside agent harnesses. Structured output earns nothing, as JSON output isn't documented for the model. Reasoning control earns nothing, since the model always thinks. Context earns 10 for 131,072 tokens trained.
LFM3-Omni-2B 70
Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (13,513 characters), with roles, images, video and audio, tools, deferred tools and tool results. Tool-calling format 25, the card and Liquid's tool-use page document tools passed through tools= in apply_chat_template, calls returned as XML and results sent back as tool messages. Trained tool calling 20, the template loops over every entry in an assistant turn's tool_calls, so several calls fit in one turn, and the card documents tool calling from spoken or written requests. Structured output 0, the card doesn't mention JSON or structured output for this model. Reasoning control 0, the card says this is a non-reasoning model and that enable_thinking=True is not supported, so there is no thinking to turn off or budget. Context 5, 32K tokens of input and output per the card. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 5 = 70.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | LFM2.5-2.6B | LFM3-Omni-2B | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 90 | 80 | LFM2.5-2.6B +10 |
| Risk | 20%20 | 50 | 40 | LFM2.5-2.6B +10 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 75 | 70 | LFM2.5-2.6B +5 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 57 | 49 | LFM2.5-2.6B +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | D 50.3/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | LFM2.5-2.6B | LFM3-Omni-2B |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Liquid AI | Liquid AI |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | LFM Open License v1.0 (free commercial use below $10M annual revenue) | LFM Open License v1.0 (free commercial use below $10M annual revenue) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (4) | none |
How the scores have moved
LFM3-Omni-2B
No score change since it was listed.
Verdicts
LFM2.5-2.6B
A small, fast model for tool calls, extraction and long-context steps on a laptop or phone, which Liquid now lists as deprecated in favour of LFM3-1.7B. Liquid's own 4-bit build is 1.6 GB and five common runtimes run it. It always thinks, and organisations over $10M of revenue need another licence. There are no safety results or security contact.
LFM3-Omni-2B
One 2.17B model that sees, listens and talks on an 8 GB machine and turns spoken requests into tool calls. Only llama.cpp and Ollama run it in a release. The context is 32K, it doesn't reason, Liquid hasn't answered a question on the repository, and there are no safety results or data sources.
Before you call either
LFM2.5-2.6B
- Quickest start is
ollama run LiquidAI/lfm2.5-2.6b, 1.7 GB, orllama-cli -hf LiquidAI/LFM2.5-2.6B-GGUF - With vLLM or SGLang pass
--tool-call-parser lfm2; for vLLM add--reasoning-parser qwen3so the thinking comes back separately - Sample at temperature 0.1, top_k 50 and repetition_penalty 1.1, as the card and generation_config.json set
- Put tools in the system prompt as
List of tools: [...]JSON, or pass tools to apply_chat_template; calls come back as a Python list of function calls, and the system prompt can ask for JSON calls instead - Leave max_tokens unset or generous, since a low cap cuts the reasoning off mid-thought
- Earlier thinking is dropped from the prompt unless
preserve_thinkingis true - Liquid's 328M LFM2.5-2.6B-DSpark drafter speeds decoding about 2.6 times in SGLang and on Apple silicon, per Liquid
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented
LFM3-Omni-2B
- Start it with
llama-server -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-Omni-2B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinjaorollama run lfm3-omni - Greedy decoding for text. For speech use audio_temperature 0.4 and audio_repetition_penalty 1.2, per the card
- The context is 32K, and llama.cpp samples video at 2 frames a second up to 384 frames
- Parse tool calls yourself from the XML it returns
- It doesn't reason, so don't pass enable_thinking
- Validate JSON output yourself
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, LFM2.5-2.6B or LFM3-Omni-2B?
LFM3-Omni-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against LFM2.5-2.6B's 50.3 (D), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. LFM2.5-2.6B leads on reach, risk, agent interface and documentation and upkeep.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/lfm2-5-2-6b-vs-lfm3-omni-2b.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/lfm2-5-2-6b.json·/api/v1/tools/lfm3-omni-2b.json - From a terminal
anchor compare lfm2-5-2-6b lfm3-omni-2b(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "lfm2-5-2-6b", "b": "lfm3-omni-2b"}at/mcp, no key