LFM2.5-2.6B vs Step 3.7 Flash

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.

Step 3.7 Flash 70

Memory 5, the smallest build at 4 bits is StepFun's IQ4_XS GGUF, 104.99 GB with the 3.97 GB projector, and 108.96 GB × 1.2 = 130.8 GB, over what the reference machine can give a model and within 256 GB. The IQ3 and Q3 builds are below 4 bits and aren't read. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 have the step3p7 model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the architecture, with StepFun's own GGUF. Four at 5 each, and the card documents all four. Builds 15, StepFun publishes GGUF at five quantised precisions, an FP8 build and an NVFP4 build. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata and its licence section, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for all four repositories on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, StepFun's own API serves it, per the card and our StepFun API listing, and Featherless and DeepInfra are live for it on Hugging Face. 5 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 70.

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.

Step 3.7 Flash 39

Model card 14, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters, the context and the language (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 0, Nothing on the card about the training data. Last change 10, the last commit, on 3 June 2026, fixed the modelling code, 160 days before this check and within 180. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (29 May to 24 June 2026) has a reply from a stepfun-ai member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, Step-3.5-Flash stays in its own repositories and 3.7 came out in new ones, with no dated note on the older cards that we read. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the context, and June commits fixed the modelling code. 14 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 39.

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.

Step 3.7 Flash 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (5,723 characters). Tool-calling format 25, the card names the parser to use in two runtimes, step3p5 in vLLM (with auto tool choice) and in SGLang, and both ship Step parsers in a release. Trained tool calling 20, the card presents tool orchestration as a main use, with multi-turn results, and the template renders every call in a turn. Structured output 0, Nothing on the card about JSON or schema-constrained output for the weights. Reasoning control 10, the template has a reasoning_effort setting and keeps reasoning_content, and the card names the step3p5 reasoning parser for vLLM and SGLang, which returns the reasoning apart from the answer. Context 10, 256K tokens per the card, and 262,144 positions in config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

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.

Step 3.7 Flash 45

File safety 15, safetensors and GGUF only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the stepfun-ai organisation, which the card's StepFun platform and model page belong to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations section and gives no guidance on prompt injection, instruction priority, refusals or safeguards. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 0, no way to report a flaw on the card, and our StepFun API listing found no security.txt, bug bounty or disclosure policy. 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 45.