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

MiniMax-M2.5 vs Ornith-1.5-122B

Ornith-1.5-122B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against MiniMax-M2.5's 59 (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 4969 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

MiniMax-M2.5 C

Best for Teams with a 4 to 8 GPU server who want an open agent and coding model with parallel tool calls and can live with its use policy

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

Watch for

230 GB in FP8, and about 155 GB for the smallest 4-bit library build, more than a 128 GB machine

Ornith-1.5-122B C

Best for Local coding and terminal agents on a 128 GB unified-memory machine or a 96 GB GPU setup, where a clear licence file and an answering publisher aren't required

Ahead on

  • Reach, 75 against 65
  • Risk, 50 against 30
  • Agent interface, 85 against 75

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.

Risk Ornith-1.5-122B +20

MiniMax-M2.5 30

File safety earns 15, safetensors only with no pickle files, less 10 because every documented loading route passes trust_remote_code for the repository's Python. Provenance earns the full 15, files in the organisation MiniMax links to with a SHA-256 for each shard. Safety evaluation and agent guidance earn nothing, as MiniMax publishes neither. Licence risk earns nothing (read 21 October 2026). The Prohibited Uses Policy goes beyond the law, MiniMax can end the licence for any breach and replaced its terms three weeks after release, and that change on 6 March 2026 came with no dated note while the card still links to a deleted file. The security programme earns nothing, with no security.txt, disclosure policy, SECURITY.md or advisories, and only a general contact address on the card.

Ornith-1.5-122B 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.

Reach Ornith-1.5-122B +10

MiniMax-M2.5 65

Memory earns 5. MiniMax only publishes its 230 GB FP8 release, and the smallest build of 4-bit or better from a runtime's own library is LM Studio's MLX 4-bit at 128.7 GB, about 154 GB with the fifth added, so it needs more than our 107.4 GB machine and fits within 256 GB. Runtimes earn the full 25, with model code in released vLLM v0.33.0, SGLang v0.5.23, llama.cpp and Transformers, an LM Studio catalogue entry, and Ollama 0.40.14, whose pinned llama.cpp b11963 has the minimax-m2 architecture, though Ollama's library lists no build. Builds earn 10 for one publisher precision, the FP8 release. Terms earn 10 for a custom licence that allows free commercial use under a use policy. Download earns 10, with no gate or account. Hosted earns 5, since Novita and Featherless AI serve it through Hugging Face, while MiniMax's own API is closed to new users and retires it on 18 November 2026. 5+25+10+10+10+5 = 65.

Ornith-1.5-122B 75

Memory 10, since Ornith's own MLX 4-bit build is 69.7 GB and needs about 83.6 GB with the fifth added, over 64 GB and inside the reference machine's 107.4 GB, as do its Q4_K_M GGUF, its NVFP4 build and Ollama's build. Runtimes 25, the most the line gives, from vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23, Transformers 5.22.2, llama.cpp's qwen35moe architecture, Ollama's library and LM Studio's catalogue for the qwen35moe architecture. Builds 15, Ornith publishes FP8, NVFP4, GGUF and MLX at several precisions. Terms 15, MIT as named in the card's metadata, 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. 10 + 25 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 75.

Agent interface Ornith-1.5-122B +10

MiniMax-M2.5 75

The chat template earns 20 for chat_template.jinja in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 25, as MiniMax's own guide documents how tools go in and how calls come back, gives a parsing function, and its deployment guides name the vLLM and SGLang parsers. Trained tool calling earns 20, with several invoke blocks in one call. Structured output earns nothing, since JSON output isn't documented or claimed. Reasoning control earns nothing, because thinking is always on with no documented way to turn it off or budget it. Context earns 10 for 196,608 tokens with no position scaling.

Ornith-1.5-122B 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 reads enable_thinking per request 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.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runMiniMax-M2.5Ornith-1.5-122BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%256575Ornith-1.5-122B +10
Risk20%203050Ornith-1.5-122B +20
Agent interface10%107585Ornith-1.5-122B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%103736MiniMax-M2.5 +1
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 59/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactMiniMax-M2.5Ornith-1.5-122B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorMiniMaxOrnith
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceMiniMax Model License (model) and modified MIT (code)MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-02-122026-10-24
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews1.8/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

MiniMax-M2.5

MiniMax-M2.5 is a 230B mixture-of-experts model for coding and agent work, with parallel tool calls, a 196K context and parsers in vLLM and SGLang. It needs a 4-GPU server for FP8 or about 155 GB for a 4-bit build. The main risk is a licence replaced after release with a Prohibited Uses Policy while the card still says modified MIT.

Ornith-1.5-122B

The largest Ornith that fits a 128 GB machine, a coding and terminal-agent cousin on Qwen3.5-122B-A10B's architecture with XML tool calls and 262,144 tokens of context. Its 4-bit builds need 84 to 93 GB. The main risk is an absent publisher, with no licence file, safety results or replies, and a card that misstates the hardware.

Before you call either

MiniMax-M2.5

  1. Start it with vLLM on 4 GPUs of 96 GB, SAFETENSORS_FAST_GPU=1 vllm serve MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.5 --trust-remote-code --tensor-parallel-size 4 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser minimax_m2 --reasoning-parser minimax_m2_append_think
  2. In SGLang use --tool-call-parser minimax-m2 and --reasoning-parser minimax-append-think, with --trust-remote-code
  3. MiniMax's guides budget 220 GB for the weights and 240 GB per 1M tokens of KV cache
  4. On a single large-memory machine, LM Studio's catalogue entry minimax/minimax-m2.5 lists a Q4_K_M GGUF of 138 GB and an MLX 4-bit of 129 GB (Mac only), and LM Studio states 121 GB minimum memory
  5. Sample with temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 and top_k 40, as the card recommends
  6. Budget output tokens for thinking on every turn, since the template always opens a think block
  7. Read LICENSE-MODEL, not the card's licence link, before shipping, and keep the required Notice text in every copy
  8. Without the hardware, call it through Novita or Featherless AI; MiniMax's own API retires M2.5 on 18 November 2026

Ornith-1.5-122B

  1. Start it with ollama run ornith-1.5:122b-q4_K_M, or llama-server -hf ornith-ai/Ornith-1.5-122B-GGUF:Q4_K_M --jinja -c 262144
  2. Budget about 92 GB for the Q4_K_M GGUF with a working context, and less context if the machine has under 100 GB for the model
  3. 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
  4. Thinking is on by default. Send chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks, a switch the card doesn't mention
  5. Pin which template your runtime loads, since chat_template.jinja keeps earlier reasoning and the tokenizer_config.json template drops it
  6. Use temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95, top_k 20 for coding and temperature 1.0 for general tasks, as the card recommends
  7. Add mmproj-Ornith-1.5-122B-BF16.gguf (0.9 GB) for image input in llama.cpp, and validate JSON output yourself, since structured output isn't documented

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, MiniMax-M2.5 or Ornith-1.5-122B?

Ornith-1.5-122B scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against MiniMax-M2.5's 59 (C), and leads in 3 of 4 scored categories.

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