Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run
LFM3-1.7B vs North Mini Code 1.0
LFM3-1.7B and North Mini Code 1.0 score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). North Mini Code 1.0 leads on risk. 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
Best for Agents on a laptop, phone or small server that need tool calling and a long context from a model under 2 GB at 4 bits
Ahead on
- Agent interface, 100 against 85
- Documentation and upkeep, 67 against 36
Watch for
vLLM and SGLang have no released support, though the card lists both
Best for Developers who want a coding agent on their own GPU with a permissive licence
Ahead on
- Risk, 60 against 40
Watch for
No limitations, safety results, languages or data description on the card
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.
Documentation and upkeep LFM3-1.7B +31
LFM3-1.7B 67
Model card 17, Intended use (local agents, tool calling, structured outputs, fine-tuning), a limitation (not recommended for agentic coding or complex multi-step reasoning), architecture (24 layers: 13 gated short convolutions, 5 sliding-window and 6 global attention), parameters (1.73B), context (256K) and 16 languages. Training data 5, A general description: 22T tokens of pre-training in two stages with the kinds of data added since LFM2, 1.75T tokens of supervised fine-tuning, then mixed reinforcement learning, distillation from six specialist teachers and agentic reinforcement learning. Last change 20, the last commit, on 9 November 2026, added the OpenVINO checkpoint to the card's inference table, a day before this check. Responsiveness 10, Of the 22 discussions that aren't pull requests (27 October to 8 November 2026), 7 have a reply from a LiquidAI member, which is some. Version policy 5, LFM3 came out in new repositories and the LFM2.5 models stay in theirs. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the lfm3 architecture, the 262,144-token context and the thinking switch. 17 + 5 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 10 = 67.
North Mini Code 1.0 36
Model card 11, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters and the context are on the card. Training data 0, the card gives the training method and nothing about the data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 15 June 2026 (outdated chat templates removed), 148 days before this check, and the draft model's repository on 29 July, 104 days. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 June to 6 November 2026) has a reply from a CohereLabs member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, with each build in its own repository. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, and the June commit that removed broken templates says so. 11 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 36.
Risk North Mini Code 1.0 +20
LFM3-1.7B 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.
North Mini Code 1.0 60
File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in Cohere's verified CohereLabs organisation, which cohere.com links to per our other Cohere listings (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on prompt injection, instruction priority or what the model refuses. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Cohere's trust centre holds a responsible disclosure policy with a bug bounty, as recorded on our Cohere listings (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 60.
Agent interface LFM3-1.7B +15
LFM3-1.7B 100
Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (12,129 characters), with roles, tools, deferred tools, tool results and the thinking switch. 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 says the model was trained on tool calls and agentic traces and with reinforcement learning inside agent harnesses. Structured output 15, Liquid's API guide documents response_format with a JSON Schema, with lfm3-1.7b as the model in its examples, and says the schema is checked before generation starts. Reasoning control 10, the card documents enable_thinking=False in the chat template to turn reasoning off per request, with reasoning on by default inside think tags, and preserve_thinking for earlier turns. Context 10, 256K tokens per the card, which says the mid-training stage extended the context window to 256K, and max_position_embeddings 262144 in config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 15 + 10 + 10 = 100.
North Mini Code 1.0 85
Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (12,397 characters). Tool-calling format 25, the card documents how tools are declared (JSON schema through the chat template), how the call and its thinking go back into the history and how results are appended, and names the cohere_command4 tool-call parser for vLLM, which released vLLM has. Trained tool calling 20, the card says the model was specifically trained with tool-use capabilities for agentic coding, with reinforcement learning on verifiable tasks, and the template renders every call in a turn with thinking between them. Structured output 0, JSON schema is for describing tools. Reasoning control 10, the template has a reasoning_effort setting, and the card names the cohere_command4 reasoning parser, which returns thinking apart from the answer. Context 10, 256K tokens per the card, with 64K of output, and 500,000 positions in config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | LFM3-1.7B | North Mini Code 1.0 | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | 35%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Reach | 25%25 | 85 | 85 | even |
| Risk | 20%20 | 40 | 60 | North Mini Code 1.0 +20 |
| Agent interface | 10%10 | 100 | 85 | LFM3-1.7B +15 |
| Documentation and upkeep | 10%10 | 67 | 36 | LFM3-1.7B +31 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | C 61/100 | C 61/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | LFM3-1.7B | North Mini Code 1.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Open-weight model | Open-weight model |
| Vendor | Liquid AI | Cohere |
| 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) | Apache-2.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-11-09 | 2026-07-29 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
Verdicts
LFM3-1.7B
A 1.73B model that fits an 8 GB machine with room to spare, with a documented tool-call format, deferred tools, a thinking switch and a 256K context. It runs today in llama.cpp, Ollama and LM Studio only, loads in Transformers through repository code, and has no safety results, security contact or data sources.
North Mini Code 1.0
A coding agent model that fits one 24 GB GPU at 4 bits, trained for tool use, with a 256K context, Apache 2.0 and four released runtimes. It's a research release and reads like one: nothing on limitations, safety or data, the card's run instructions are out of date, and Cohere hasn't answered a question on the repository.
Before you call either
LFM3-1.7B
- Start it with
llama-server -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinjaorollama run lfm3 - Use temperature 0.1, top_k 50 and repetition penalty 1.1 for chat, tools and agents, per the card
- Pass
enable_thinking=Falsefor direct answers, and expect it to reason anyway on hard tasks - For a large tool catalogue mark tools
defer_loadingand give it a search tool - Don't plan on vLLM or SGLang until a release carries LFM3
- Liquid doesn't recommend it for agentic coding or complex multi-step reasoning
North Mini Code 1.0
- Serve it with vLLM 0.33.0 or later and
--tool-call-parser cohere_command4 --reasoning-parser cohere_command4 --enable-auto-tool-choice, withcohere_melodyinstalled - Pass the model's thinking back with its tool calls on every turn. The card says results drop without it
- Describe tools in JSON schema and append tool results as a dictionary with the tool role
- Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95
- For llama.cpp the GGUF files are Unsloth's or bartowski's conversions, not Cohere's
- It's text only. Don't send images
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, LFM3-1.7B or North Mini Code 1.0?
LFM3-1.7B and North Mini Code 1.0 score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). North Mini Code 1.0 leads on risk.
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Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/lfm3-1-7b-vs-north-mini-code-1-0.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/lfm3-1-7b.json·/api/v1/tools/north-mini-code-1-0.json - From a terminal
anchor compare lfm3-1-7b north-mini-code-1-0(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "lfm3-1-7b", "b": "north-mini-code-1-0"}at/mcp, no key