LFM3-1.7B vs Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507

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.

Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 26

Model card 11 of 20, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are there, but limitations, named languages and a knowledge cut-off aren't. Training data 5, the cited Qwen3 report describes the data in general terms without a cut-off. Last change 0, the files last changed on 17 September 2025 (Hub lastModified on 4 November), more than a year ago. Responsiveness 0, counted by script on 4 November, Qwen answered none of the 20 questions and reports. Version policy 5, the older Qwen3-4B stays in its own repository without a note. File health 5, the files agree with the card in substance but reports wait without a reply. 11 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 26.

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.

Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 75

Chat template 20, a Jinja template in tokenizer_config.json. Tool-calling format 25, Qwen's own Function Calling guide documents the Hermes-style declaration and how calls come back, and names vLLM's hermes parser. Trained tool calling 20, the template allows one or more calls a turn. Structured output 0, not documented for the model, and Qwen's docs only point to vLLM's generic guided decoding. Reasoning control 0, this edition has no thinking. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native. Template and config unchanged on 4 November. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 75.

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.

Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 55

File safety 25, safetensors only and nothing from the repository runs to load it or build prompts. Provenance 15, the files are in the Qwen organisation that Qwen's GitHub links to, with a checksum on every file. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 0, nothing on prompt injection, refusals or safeguards. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0 that hasn't changed. Security programme 0, no security.txt, disclosure policy or security contact for Qwen was found, and Alibaba's group security centre couldn't be checked, so it's scored as absent. Files unchanged on 4 November, and QwenLM/Qwen3 still has no SECURITY.md. 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 55.

LFM3-1.7B 85

Memory 30, Liquid's Q4_K_M GGUF is 1.10 GB, and 1.10 GB × 1.2 = 1.3 GB, which fits 8 GB, well inside the 16 GB line. Runtimes 15, Released llama.cpp has the lfm3 architecture (src/models/lfm3.cpp at b12242), Ollama's library has an lfm3 entry, and LM Studio's catalogue runs the architecture (its liquid/lfm3-vl-2b entry; lmstudio-community publishes a GGUF of this model). 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 lfm3-1.7b among its models, so the publisher hosts it. 30 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 85.

Qwen3-4B-Instruct-2507 90

Memory 30, LM Studio's and Ollama's 4-bit builds are 2.3 to 2.5 GB, about 3 GB with a fifth added, inside 16 GB. Runtimes 25, released Transformers, vLLM, SGLang and llama.cpp run the qwen3 architecture, Ollama's released build pins a llama.cpp that has it, and LM Studio's catalogue carries it. Builds 10 of 15, Alibaba's only quantised build is FP8. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added. Download 10, neither repository is gated. Hosted 0, on 4 November 2026 the Hub's provider mapping showed only Featherless AI with status error, Nscale was gone and Alibaba's Model Studio doesn't list it. 30 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 90.