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

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B vs Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B and Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B leads on agent interface. 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

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B C

Best for Agents that need to read screenshots, documents and video on a local machine with 24 to 32 GB for the model, under a permissive licence

Ahead on

  • Risk, 55 against 50
  • Documentation and upkeep, 68 against 36

Watch for

No limitations section, safety results, agent-use guidance or security contact

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B C

Best for Local coding and terminal agents on a 24 to 32 GB GPU or a Mac, where a clear licence file and an answering publisher aren't required

Ahead on

  • Agent interface, 85 against 70

Watch for

No LICENSE file though the card links one, and no notice for the Apache 2.0 Qwen3.5 and Gemma 4 work it builds on

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 MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +32

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 68

Model card 8, it covers intended use, architecture and parameters but not limitations, context length, languages or a knowledge cut-off. Training data 0, none described. Last change 20, a commit on 3 November 2026. Responsiveness 20, OpenBMB answered 8 of 12 discussions. Version policy 10, earlier versions keep their repositories and the changes are dated and described. File health 10, the files agree. 8 + 0 + 20 + 20 + 10 + 10 = 68.

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B 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 deleted configuration.json and a marker file from its FP8 build on 20 October 2026, 14 days ago, which this run counts as a change to the files. Responsiveness 0, Ornith answered none of the 36 questions and reports. Version policy 0, a weight shard, every GGUF file, an FP8 shard and the NVFP4 shards were replaced in place between 23 and 26 August with no note. File health 0, the card links a missing LICENSE, and the two chat templates differ. 11 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 36.

Agent interface Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B +15

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 70

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10, the card shows the tools array going in but not the call coming back, and names no parser. Trained tool calling 20, the template renders several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, not documented or claimed. Reasoning control 10, enable_thinking per request, off by default, with the trace between markers. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native.

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B 85

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, the card shows how tools go in and how calls come back and names the parser for vLLM and SGLang. Trained tool calling 20, Ornith trains it on agent tasks and the template renders several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, not documented or claimed. Reasoning control 10, Ornith's template turns thinking off per request with enable_thinking set to false and the card says the reasoning comes back in reasoning_content, though the card doesn't name the switch. Context 10, 262,144 tokens native.

Risk MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +5

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B 55

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, no Python in the main repository and no remote code needed. Provenance 15, the files come from the openbmb organisation OpenBMB's GitHub README links to, with a SHA-256 for every weight file. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, nothing published on either, and the card has no limitations section. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0. Security programme 0, no security.txt or SECURITY.md.

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B 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 runMiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3BOrnith-1.5-35B-A3BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%259090even
Risk20%205550MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +5
Agent interface10%107085Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B +15
Documentation and upkeep10%106836MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B +32
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactMiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3BOrnith-1.5-35B-A3B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorOpenBMBOrnith
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-032026-08-23
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2.3/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

A vision-language cousin for images and video that fits a 24 to 32 GB machine from OpenBMB's own GGUF, under plain Apache 2.0, with a publisher that answers. The card says little about limits, training data or how tool calls come back, so test the tool format in your runtime before relying on it.

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B

A mid-size coding and terminal-agent cousin with about 3B active parameters, XML tool calls that vLLM and SGLang parse and 262,144 tokens of context. It runs in about 24 GB from Ornith's MLX 4-bit build or 32 GB from its GGUF. The main risk is an absent publisher, with no licence file, safety results or replies to 36 reports.

Before you call either

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B

  1. Start it with llama-server -hf openbmb/MiniCPM-V-4.7-35B-A3B-gguf:Q4_K_M --jinja, or ollama run openbmb/minicpm-v4.7:35b-a3b
  2. For image input in llama.cpp add mmproj-model-f16.gguf, or the 4x projector for more visual detail at a higher cost
  3. The GGUF files at the repository root have thinking off. Use the files in thinking/ when you want the trace
  4. With Transformers pass enable_thinking to apply_chat_template, and pass downsample_mode to both apply_chat_template and generate
  5. Use temperature 0.7, top_p 0.95 and top_k 100 in instruct mode, as the card recommends
  6. Check tool calls in your runtime first, since the card names no parser. The template uses the Qwen3.5 function-block format
  7. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B

  1. Start it with ollama run ornith-1.5:35b, or llama-server -hf ornith-ai/Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-GGUF --port 8000 -c 262144 as the card gives it
  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. Use temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95, top_k 20 for general tasks and temperature 1.0 to reproduce the card's benchmarks
  6. Pin a revision when you download, since Ornith has replaced files in place, and add mmproj-Ornith-1.5-35B-BF16.gguf (0.9 GB) for image input in llama.cpp
  7. Validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B or Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B?

MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B and Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B leads on agent interface.

Other comparisons with MiniCPM-V 4.7 35B-A3B or Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B

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