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

LFM3-Audio-2B vs Ornith-1.5-397B

LFM3-Audio-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ornith-1.5-397B's 59 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Ornith-1.5-397B leads on risk. 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

LFM3-Audio-2B C

Best for Voice agents on a laptop or phone that need speech in, speech out and tool calls from one small model

Ahead on

  • Reach, 80 against 65
  • Documentation and upkeep, 52 against 36

Watch for

Only llama.cpp and Ollama run it in a release, though the card lists vLLM and SGLang

Ornith-1.5-397B C

Best for A self-hosted frontier-scale coding agent on an 8-GPU server, where a clear licence file and an answering publisher aren't required

Ahead on

  • Risk, 50 against 40

Watch for

Needs about 290 GB of memory at 4 bits and about 970 GB in BF16, so it doesn't fit the reference machine

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-Audio-2B +16

LFM3-Audio-2B 52

Model card 17, Intended use (local agents, tool calling, structured outputs, fine-tuning), limitations (not recommended for agentic coding or complex multi-step reasoning, voice chat in English only), an architecture section, parameters (2B), context (32K) and 19 speech languages and locales. 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 31 October, edited the card. Responsiveness 0, Neither of the 2 discussions that aren't pull requests (27 and 31 October 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. 17 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 52.

Ornith-1.5-397B 36

Model card 11, it covers intended use, architecture, parameters and context but not limitations, languages or a knowledge cut-off. Training data 5, a description of the method with no data or cut-off. Last change 20, Ornith uploaded new shards to the NVFP4 build on 20 October 2026. Responsiveness 0, nobody from Ornith answered either of the 2 questions, or any of the six on its GGUF and NVFP4 builds. Version policy 0, every GGUF file and the NVFP4 shards were replaced in place in August with no note. File health 0, the card links a missing LICENSE, the two chat templates differ, and the NVFP4 build carries shards its index doesn't use.

Reach LFM3-Audio-2B +15

LFM3-Audio-2B 80

Memory 30, Liquid's Q4_K_M GGUF is 1.10 GB with its 0.17 GB projector file, and 1.27 GB × 1.2 = 1.5 GB, which fits 8 GB, well inside the 16 GB line. Runtimes 10, Released llama.cpp has the lfm3 architecture with the LFM3 audio projector and speech output (src/models/lfm3.cpp and tools/mtmd at b12242, with a realtime client example that starts this model), and Ollama's library has an lfm3-audio 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-audio-2b among its models, so the publisher hosts it. 30 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 80.

Ornith-1.5-397B 65

Memory 0, since the smallest 4-bit build, Ollama's at 242 GB, needs about 290 GB with the fifth added, above the 256 GB band, and Ornith's own Q4_K_M GGUF and NVFP4 builds need about the same. Runtimes 25, the most the line gives, from vLLM 0.19.1, SGLang 0.5.9, Transformers 5.8.1, llama.cpp's qwen35moe architecture and Ollama's library, while LM Studio's entry is the base's. Builds 15, Ornith publishes FP8, NVFP4 and GGUF at several precisions. Terms 15, MIT as named in the card's metadata on 21 October 2026, with nothing added, read by its terms though the repository has no licence file. Download 10, nothing is gated. Hosted 0, Ornith runs no API and no inference provider serves it.

Risk Ornith-1.5-397B +10

LFM3-Audio-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.

Ornith-1.5-397B 50

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only and no Python in any of Ornith's repositories for this size, so the card's --trust-remote-code flag loads nothing from the repository. Provenance 15, the files come from the ornith-ai organisation Ornith's blog links to, with a SHA-256 for every weight file. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, nothing published on either. Licence risk 10, MIT carries no policy, threshold or changeable terms, but the card's licence link is broken. Security programme 0, no security.txt, disclosure policy or security contact.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLFM3-Audio-2BOrnith-1.5-397BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258065LFM3-Audio-2B +15
Risk20%204050Ornith-1.5-397B +10
Agent interface10%108585even
Documentation and upkeep10%105236LFM3-Audio-2B +16
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 59/100

Facts side by side

FactLFM3-Audio-2BOrnith-1.5-397B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorLiquid AIOrnith
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 release2026-11-032026-08-23
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2/5 (4)

Verdicts

LFM3-Audio-2B

A 2B model that listens and speaks on an 8 GB machine, transcribes and translates 19 languages and turns spoken requests into tool calls. Only llama.cpp and Ollama run it in a release. The context is 32K, voice chat is English only, Liquid hasn't answered the repository's questions, and there are no safety results or data sources.

Ornith-1.5-397B

Ornith's largest coding and terminal-agent model, with XML tool calls that vLLM and SGLang parse and 262,144 tokens of context. It needs about 290 GB even at 4 bits, so a multi-GPU server, not the 128 GB reference machine. The main risks are a missing licence file, no safety results, no publisher replies and files replaced without a note.

Before you call either

LFM3-Audio-2B

  1. Start it with llama-server -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-Audio-2B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja or ollama run lfm3-audio
  2. llama.cpp ships examples/realtime_client.py for live speech with this model
  3. Prefill the assistant turn with an open think tag to let it reason before a text reply
  4. The context is 32K
  5. Voice chat is English only, while transcription, synthesis and translation cover 19 languages and locales
  6. Liquid doesn't recommend it for agentic coding or complex multi-step reasoning

Ornith-1.5-397B

  1. Start it with the card's vLLM command at --tensor-parallel-size 8, or ollama run ornith-1.5:397b on a machine with about 300 GB of memory
  2. In vLLM pass --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_xml --reasoning-parser qwen3, and in SGLang --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --reasoning-parser qwen3, so tool calls and reasoning come back parsed
  3. Thinking is on by default. Send chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks, a switch the card doesn't mention
  4. Pin which template your runtime loads, since chat_template.jinja keeps earlier reasoning and the tokenizer_config.json template drops it
  5. When downloading the NVFP4 build, fetch only the files its model.safetensors.index.json names (the 25-shard set, 241.7 GB), not the eight extra shards
  6. Pin a revision when you download, since Ornith has replaced files in place
  7. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, LFM3-Audio-2B or Ornith-1.5-397B?

LFM3-Audio-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ornith-1.5-397B's 59 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Ornith-1.5-397B leads on risk.

Other comparisons with LFM3-Audio-2B or Ornith-1.5-397B

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