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

Ling-3.0-tiny vs ZAYA1-8B

ZAYA1-8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.0-tiny's 56.2 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Ling-3.0-tiny leads on reach and documentation and upkeep. 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

Ling-3.0-tiny C

Best for Agents on a laptop or small GPU that want a fast local model for tool calls and short reasoning, under MIT

Ahead on

  • Reach, 95 against 80
  • Documentation and upkeep, 56 against 50

Watch for

No inference provider is listed on the Hub and no inclusionAI API serves it

ZAYA1-8B C

Best for People who want a small, fast reasoning model for maths and code and can live without tool calling

Ahead on

  • Risk, 55 against 50

Watch for

Tool calling needs a parser that only Zyphra's vLLM fork has

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.

Reach Ling-3.0-tiny +15

Ling-3.0-tiny 95

Memory earns the full 30, since inclusionAI's own Q4_K_M GGUF is 4.8 GB, about 6 GB with a fifth added. Runtimes earn the full 25, from released Transformers, vLLM, SGLang and llama.cpp, and Ollama, whose v0.40.14 (2 November 2026) pins llama.cpp b11963 with the bailingmoe3 architecture (Ollama v0.40.7 of 20 October already pinned b11738, which has it). LM Studio has nothing. Builds earn 15 for FP8, INT4 and four GGUF precisions from inclusionAI. MIT with nothing added gives terms the full 15 and the ungated repositories give download the full 10. Hosted too scores 0, because the Hub's model page lists no inference provider and no inclusionAI or Ant Group API serving it was found.

ZAYA1-8B 80

Memory 30, the smallest build from Zyphra is the MXFP4-Experts repository, 5.85 GB, and 5.85 GB × 1.2 = 7.0 GB, within 16 GB. Runtimes 10, Released Transformers 5.22.2 has the zaya model and SGLang 0.5.23 has srt/models/zaya.py. Builds 15, Quantised builds from Zyphra at two precisions, FP8 and MXFP4 for the experts, each in its own repository. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the model and its builds on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it, and the card names no API. Zyphra's site lists a cloud product for its open models, which wasn't checked for this model. 30 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 80.

Documentation and upkeep Ling-3.0-tiny +6

Ling-3.0-tiny 56

Model card 11, intended use, architecture, parameters and context are there, limitations, languages and a cut-off aren't. Training data 15, a data card with sources, size, cut-off and filtering. Last change 15, the newest commit is still the card change of 24 September 2026, 41 days before 4 November. Responsiveness 10, six of 16 discussions answered by an inclusionAI member, some. Version policy 5, a first release at this size. File health 0, the card's MTP recipe contradicts the files and a broken index size waits without a reply.

ZAYA1-8B 50

Model card 5, Intended use and the parameter counts are on the card. Training data 0, Nothing on the card about the training data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 26 June 2026 (the checkpoint reshaped for Transformers), 137 days before this check, and the quantised repositories on 2 July, 131 days. Responsiveness 20, Of the 16 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 May to 14 August 2026), 10 have a reply from a Zyphra member, which is most. Version policy 5, the original checkpoint is kept as ZAYA1-8B-legacy and the card says so at the top, without a date. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture after the reshape. 5 + 0 + 10 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 50.

Risk ZAYA1-8B +5

Ling-3.0-tiny 50

File safety gets 15, safetensors and GGUF only, but the card's vLLM command runs the repository's config code with --trust-remote-code. Provenance gets 15 for files in inclusionAI's own organisation with a checksum on each. Safety evaluation is 0, since SingProbe's results grade the probe, not the model. Agent guidance gets 5 for the SingProbe guardrail inclusionAI publishes for this model, with no statement of trained refusals. MIT carries no licence deductions (15). No security contact or disclosure policy was found (0).

ZAYA1-8B 55

File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in the Zyphra organisation, which the card ties to zyphra.com's blog post for the model (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 0, no way to report a flaw on the card, and www.zyphra.com has no security.txt. 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 55.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLing-3.0-tinyZAYA1-8BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259580Ling-3.0-tiny +15
Risk20%205055ZAYA1-8B +5
Agent interface10%106060even
Documentation and upkeep10%105650Ling-3.0-tiny +6
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 56.2/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactLing-3.0-tinyZAYA1-8B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorinclusionAI (Ant Group)Zyphra
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITApache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-08-312026-07-02
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews2.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Ling-3.0-tiny

ZAYA1-8B

No score change since it was listed.

Verdicts

Ling-3.0-tiny

A small, quick hybrid reasoning model for local agent work, tool calls and coding, under MIT. It runs in about 6 GB from inclusionAI's 4-bit GGUF in released Transformers, vLLM, SGLang, llama.cpp and Ollama, with no host. The risks are a card that doesn't match the files in places, a vLLM route running repository code, and no safety results.

ZAYA1-8B

A small reasoning model trained from scratch by one lab, with a clean licence, 4-bit and FP8 builds and a team that answers questions. It's the hardest of the small models to run: its own architecture, a card that points at forks, and tool calling that needs a parser no release has. Little on limits, data or safety.

Before you call either

Ling-3.0-tiny

  1. Start it with llama-server -hf inclusionAI/Ling-3.0-tiny-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja -c 32768, which needs llama.cpp b11772 or a recent release with bailingmoe3
  2. With vLLM 0.32.0, vllm serve inclusionAI/Ling-3.0-tiny --trust-remote-code --enable-prefix-caching --mamba-cache-mode align --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser ling3 --reasoning-parser ling3, which runs the repository's config code
  3. With SGLang 0.5.22, its cookbook uses --reasoning-parser deepseek-r1 --tool-call-parser glm45 for this model, and drop the card's NEXTN flags since tiny has no MTP layer
  4. Thinking is on by default, pass chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks
  5. Sampling per the card is temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20
  6. The template keeps earlier reasoning in the prompt, which grows long agent sessions
  7. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since structured output isn't documented
  8. For a guardrail, inclusionAI's Ling-3.0-tiny-singprobe scores intent, unsafe output and hallucination per token, but only through SGLang and vLLM integration branches

ZAYA1-8B

  1. Use it for reasoning, maths and code. Don't count on tool calling outside Zyphra's vLLM fork
  2. Run it with Transformers 5.22.2 or SGLang 0.5.23, which have the model built in
  3. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 in general, and temperature 0.6 for agent and code work
  4. Download Zyphra/ZAYA1-8B, not the legacy repository, for the released runtimes
  5. The quantised repositories have no licence tag. The main one is Apache 2.0

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Ling-3.0-tiny or ZAYA1-8B?

ZAYA1-8B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.0-tiny's 56.2 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Ling-3.0-tiny leads on reach and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Ling-3.0-tiny or ZAYA1-8B

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