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

LFM3-Audio-2B vs Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507

LFM3-Audio-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507's 56.6 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 leads on reach and 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

  • Agent interface, 85 against 75
  • Documentation and upkeep, 52 against 26

Watch for

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

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 C

Best for Agents that want an instruct model with tool calling on one 24 GB GPU or a 32 GB Mac, with a plain licence and a 262,144-token context.

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 80
  • Risk, 55 against 40

Watch for

No safety results, prompt-injection guidance or security contact

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 +26

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.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-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 and card last changed on 17 September 2025 (Hub lastModified on 4 November), and QwenLM/Qwen3's commits since are documentation only (the newest 8 January 2026). Responsiveness 0, counted by script on 4 November, with 32 discussions, 23 not pull requests (the newest 18 June 2026), and the only reply from a Qwen organisation member is Haihao's on discussion 3 (30 July 2025), who isn't counted as the publisher's staff (the ehartford and danielhanchen reading). Version policy 5, the older Qwen3-30B-A3B stays in its own repository without a note. File health 5, the files agree with the card but reports about the 1M mode wait without a reply. 11 + 5 + 0 + 0 + 5 + 5 = 26.

Risk Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 +15

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.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-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 whose only change was the copyright year before release. 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.

Reach Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 +10

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.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 90

Memory 25 of 30, LM Studio's MLX 4-bit build is 17.2 GB and Ollama's 4-bit build 19 GB, 21 to 23 GB with a fifth added, which fits 24 GB. Runtimes 25, released Transformers, vLLM, SGLang and llama.cpp run the qwen3_moe architecture, and Ollama's library and LM Studio's catalogue carry 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 5, Featherless AI on Hugging Face plus DekaLLM and SiliconFlow on OpenRouter serve it. On 4 November both repositories were still ungated with no file changed since 17 September 2025, and Featherless AI was still live in the Hub's provider mapping (OpenRouter's providers per 21 October). 25 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 90.

Agent interface LFM3-Audio-2B +10

LFM3-Audio-2B 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (9,328 characters), with roles, audio, tools, deferred tools and tool results. 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 names turning spoken requests into tool calls as one of its four uses. Structured output 5, the card says the model is designed for structured outputs without saying how to ask for JSON. Liquid's API guide documents response_format with lfm3-1.7b as its example. Reasoning control 10, the card documents reasoning per request for text replies: the caller prefills the assistant turn with an open think tag to let the model reason, or a closed one for a direct answer, with a use_thinking example. Context 5, 32K tokens of input and output per the card. 20 + 25 + 20 + 5 + 10 + 5 = 85.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-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, with the 1M mode not counted. Template and config unchanged on 4 November. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 75.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLFM3-Audio-2BQwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258090Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 +10
Risk20%204055Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 +15
Agent interface10%108575LFM3-Audio-2B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%105226LFM3-Audio-2B +26
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 56.6/100

Facts side by side

FactLFM3-Audio-2BQwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorLiquid AIAlibaba (Qwen team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceLFM Open License v1.0 (free commercial use below $10M annual revenue)Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtyesno
Last release2026-11-032025-09-17
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2.8/5 (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.

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507

A general-purpose instruct model with 3.3B of 30.5B parameters active per token, for instruction following, tool calling and long documents without a thinking step. It needs about 21 to 23 GB at 4 bits under Apache 2.0, and providers host it. Its files haven't changed in over a year, Alibaba hasn't answered its discussions, and no safety results are published.

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

Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507

  1. Quickest start is ollama run qwen3:30b-instruct, 19 GB. Plain qwen3:30b and qwen3:30b-a3b are the Thinking-2507 edition, not this one
  2. On our reference machine use BF16 with vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 --max-model-len 262144 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser hermes, 61 GB of weights fits the GPU share
  3. Use the hermes parser in vLLM or qwen25 in SGLang, the template emits JSON inside tool_call tags
  4. Don't pass enable_thinking, this edition never thinks and the card says the flag isn't needed
  5. Sampling per the card is temperature 0.7, top_p 0.8, top_k 20 and min_p 0, with presence_penalty up to 2 against repetition
  6. Leave config.json as it is unless you need more than 262,144 tokens, the 1M mode swaps in config_1m.json and runs one sequence at a time
  7. Validate JSON yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, LFM3-Audio-2B or Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507?

LFM3-Audio-2B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507's 56.6 (C), and leads in 2 of 4 scored categories. Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507 leads on reach and risk.

Other comparisons with LFM3-Audio-2B or Qwen3-30B-A3B-Instruct-2507

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