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

LFM2.5-2.6B vs Ling-3.1-flash-1019

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 scores 54.8 (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 and agent interface. 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

LFM2.5-2.6B D

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 60
  • Risk, 50 against 45
  • Agent interface, 75 against 60

Watch for

Liquid lists it as deprecated, replaced by LFM3-1.7B; deprecated models stay downloadable but get no further updates

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

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

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.

Reach LFM2.5-2.6B +30

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.

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.

Agent interface LFM2.5-2.6B +15

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.

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.

Risk LFM2.5-2.6B +5

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.

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 runLFM2.5-2.6BLing-3.1-flash-1019Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259060LFM2.5-2.6B +30
Risk20%205045LFM2.5-2.6B +5
Agent interface10%107560LFM2.5-2.6B +15
Documentation and upkeep10%105756LFM2.5-2.6B +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalD 50.3/100C 54.8/100

Facts side by side

FactLFM2.5-2.6BLing-3.1-flash-1019
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorLiquid AIinclusionAI (Ant Group)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceLFM Open License v1.0 (free commercial use below $10M annual revenue)MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-11-032026-11-04
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.5/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

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.

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

LFM2.5-2.6B

  1. Quickest start is ollama run LiquidAI/lfm2.5-2.6b, 1.7 GB, or llama-cli -hf LiquidAI/LFM2.5-2.6B-GGUF
  2. With vLLM or SGLang pass --tool-call-parser lfm2; for vLLM add --reasoning-parser qwen3 so the thinking comes back separately
  3. Sample at temperature 0.1, top_k 50 and repetition_penalty 1.1, as the card and generation_config.json set
  4. 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
  5. Leave max_tokens unset or generous, since a low cap cuts the reasoning off mid-thought
  6. Earlier thinking is dropped from the prompt unless preserve_thinking is true
  7. Liquid's 328M LFM2.5-2.6B-DSpark drafter speeds decoding about 2.6 times in SGLang and on Apple silicon, per Liquid
  8. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented

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, LFM2.5-2.6B or Ling-3.1-flash-1019?

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 scores 54.8 (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 and agent interface.

Other comparisons with LFM2.5-2.6B or Ling-3.1-flash-1019

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