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

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 vs Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B scores 56.8 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.1-flash-1019's 54.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories. 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-3.1-flash-1019 C

Best for Teams with a multi-GPU server that want an MIT-licensed flagship for long agent runs and coding

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

574 GB in FP8 with no smaller build from inclusionAI, so no single machine under 690 GB of GPU memory runs it

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B C

Best for Agents on laptops, edge boards and small GPUs that need a cheap local tool-calling helper in English

Ahead on

  • Reach, 90 against 60
  • Risk, 65 against 45
  • Agent interface, 70 against 60

Watch for

The card's Transformers and vLLM commands pass trust_remote_code and load a parser plugin from the repository

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 Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +30

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 60

Memory 0, inclusionAI's only build is the FP8 release at 573.78 GB, × 1.2 = 688.5 GB, above 256 GB, and no runtime's library has a build. Runtimes 25, Released model code in Transformers 5.22.2 (bailing_hybrid), vLLM 0.33.0 (BailingMoeV3ForCausalLM, with ling3 tool and reasoning parsers), SGLang 0.5.23 (bailing_moe_v3.py, its bailing_hybrid config and MTP module) and llama.cpp b12242 (bailingmoe3), and Ollama, credited through its pinned llama.cpp as on the Ling-3.0-tiny listing: v0.40.16 sets LLAMA_CPP_VERSION to b12177. Builds 10, the release is FP8, the one quantised precision inclusionAI publishes for it. Terms 15, MIT in the card's metadata, with no use policy or other terms added on the card or in the repository. Download 10, the Hub API's model info gives gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and no terms to accept. Hosted 0, the Hub API's provider mapping is empty for this repository on 10 November 2026. 0 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 60.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 90

Memory earns the full 30, since NVIDIA's own 2.84 GB GGUF needs under 4 GB with the fifth added. Runtimes earn the full 25 from released llama.cpp, vLLM, SGLang, Transformers, Ollama and LM Studio. Builds earn 15 for NVIDIA's FP8 and GGUF. Terms earn 10, since the Nemotron licence is custom even though it's free for commercial use with no threshold or use policy. Download earns 10, with no gate or account. Hosted earns 0, as no Hugging Face provider serves it and no NVIDIA hosting was found.

Risk Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +20

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 45

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25), less 10 because the card's documented vLLM command passes --trust-remote-code, which runs the repository's configuration_bailing_moe_v3.py, since vLLM 0.33.0 registers no bailing_hybrid config of its own. Provenance 15, files in the inclusionAI organisation that inclusion-ai.org links to, per the Ling-3.0-tiny listing (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results for the model on its card or in the training-content summary. Agent guidance 0, the card has nothing on prompt injection, refusals or safeguards, and inclusionAI publishes no guardrail probe for this model as it did for Ling 3.0. Licence risk 15, MIT with no use policy, no field-of-use limits, no threshold and no clause letting inclusionAI change or revoke it. Security programme 0, www.inclusion-ai.org answers 404 for security.txt on 10 November 2026, and the Ling-3.0-tiny listing found no SECURITY.md or disclosure policy in the inclusionAI .github repository. 15 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 0 = 45.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 65

File safety earns 15, safetensors and GGUF only but with 10 off because the documented commands pass trust_remote_code and load a parser plugin from the repository. Provenance earns 15, files in NVIDIA's linked organisation with a hash for every file. Safety evaluation earns 0, no results. Agent guidance earns 10, subcards that name prompt injection and the safeguards to add, without an instruction hierarchy. Licence risk keeps all 15, since the switch to the Nemotron licence happened on release day. The security programme earns 10 for the reporting route on the card and NVIDIA's public bulletins.

Agent interface Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +10

Ling-3.1-flash-1019 60

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (6,042 characters), which handles tools, the thinking switch and preserved reasoning. Tool-calling format 10, only the template says how tools are declared (JSON in <tools>) and how calls come back (<tool_call>name with <arg_key> and <arg_value> pairs). Trained tool calling 20, the template tells the model it may call one or more functions and loops over every entry in an assistant message's tool_calls, and the card reports gains on agentic benchmarks, AA-Briefcase and AutomationBench-AA among them. Structured output 0, the card doesn't document JSON or JSON Schema output. Reasoning control 0, the card documents turning thinking on or off per request with chat_template_kwargs enable_thinking, and names the ling3 reasoning parser, but doesn't say where the reasoning text comes back. Context 10, 262,144 tokens natively in config.json (max_position_embeddings 262144, rope_scaling null) and per SGLang's cookbook. 20 + 10 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 10 = 60.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B 70

The chat template earns 20, a Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 10 of 25, as only the template shows the format and the parser name appears only in a serving command. Trained tool calling earns 20, with tool-use benchmarks and data and several calls per turn in the template. Structured output earns 0, not claimed or documented. Reasoning control earns 10, thinking off per request with a parser that returns the reasoning apart. Context earns 10 for 262,144 tokens.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runLing-3.1-flash-1019Nemotron 3 Nano 4BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%256090Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +30
Risk20%204565Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +20
Agent interface10%106070Nemotron 3 Nano 4B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%105655Ling-3.1-flash-1019 +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 54.8/100C 56.8/100

Facts side by side

FactLing-3.1-flash-1019Nemotron 3 Nano 4B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorinclusionAI (Ant Group)NVIDIA
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMITNVIDIA Nemotron Open Model License
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-042026-03-16
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone3.3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Ling-3.1-flash-1019

inclusionAI's newest flagship, a 560B hybrid mixture of experts under plain MIT that vLLM, SGLang, Transformers and llama.cpp run in released versions. It ships only as 574 GB of FP8, so it needs a multi-GPU server. The card overstates the context, documents little about tool calls, and has no safety results.

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

A 3.97-billion-parameter reasoning model with trained tool calls, a thinking switch and 262,144 tokens of context, which runs in about 4 GB from NVIDIA's own GGUF. The main risks are serving commands that run repository code, no published safety results, a tool format left to the template, and files unchanged and questions unanswered since March 2026.

Before you call either

Ling-3.1-flash-1019

  1. Serve it with SGLang 0.5.23 or later on 8 H200 or 4 GB300 GPUs, per the card, and use this repository's name as the model path, not the earlier one the card's command shows
  2. With vLLM pass --trust-remote-code, --tool-call-parser ling3 and --reasoning-parser ling3
  3. Set chat_template_kwargs enable_thinking false for direct answers. Reasoning comes back in reasoning_content per SGLang's cookbook
  4. Plan on 262,144 tokens of context. The 1M figure needs the YaRN override in SGLang's cookbook
  5. Use temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and top_k 20, per the card
  6. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

  1. Quickest start is ollama run nemotron-3-nano:4b, a 2.8 GB build
  2. With llama.cpp use llama-server -hf nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B-GGUF --jinja, NVIDIA's own Q4_K_M file
  3. With vLLM, download nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py from the repository first and serve with --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --reasoning-parser-plugin nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py --reasoning-parser nano_v3
  4. The card's Transformers snippet names nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B, use nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-4B-BF16 instead
  5. Thinking is on by default. Pass enable_thinking=False to the chat template for short tasks
  6. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95 for reasoning and temperature 0.6 with top_p 0.95 for tool calling, as the card says
  7. It's tuned for English only, and validate JSON yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Ling-3.1-flash-1019 or Nemotron 3 Nano 4B?

Nemotron 3 Nano 4B scores 56.8 (C) on agent readiness against Ling-3.1-flash-1019's 54.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.

Other comparisons with Ling-3.1-flash-1019 or Nemotron 3 Nano 4B

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