Nanbeige4.2-3B vs Spark-X2.6-4B

Nanbeige4.2-3B 72

Model card 17, Intended use, limitations, the architecture, the parameters (3B outside the embeddings), the context and the languages (in the metadata) are on the card. Training data 5, A general description of how the fine-tuning and reinforcement learning data was built and filtered, with no sources, sizes or cut-off. Last change 15, the last commit, on 11 September 2026, updated modeling_nanbeige.py, 60 days before this check and within 90. Responsiveness 20, Of the 34 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (21 July to 10 September 2026), 20 have a reply from a Nanbeige member, which is most. Version policy 5, Nanbeige's earlier models (Nanbeige4-3B, 4.1-3B) stay in their own repositories, as the Base, FP8, 8-bit and DSpark builds of this one do. File health 10, Config, tokenizer config, template and card agree on the architecture and the 262,144 tokens. 17 + 5 + 15 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 72.

Spark-X2.6-4B 51

Model card 11 of 20, intended use, parameters, context and languages, with no limitations, cut-off or architecture description of its own. Training data 0, the X2.6 card describes none. Last change 20, the card changed on 1 November 2026. Responsiveness 10, SparkLLM members answered 11 of 40 discussions. Version policy 5, X2.5 stays in place with no note. File health 5, the tokenizer config's 131,072 disagrees with the 1M context.

Nanbeige4.2-3B 85

Chat template 20, A Jinja chat template in tokenizer_config.json (7,961 characters), with enable_thinking, preserve_thinking, tools and tool_call_format switches. Tool-calling format 25, the card says passing tools switches on the tool template and recommends tool_call_format xml, with json for compatibility, and its SGLang and vLLM commands name the nanbeige tool-call parser, which released SGLang 0.5.23 has. Trained tool calling 20, the card describes fine-tuning on tool-use environments and agent scaffolds and reinforcement learning on agent tasks, and the template tells the model it may call one or more functions and renders every call in a turn. Structured output 0, Neither the card nor the files mention JSON or JSON Schema output, beyond json as a tool-call format. Reasoning control 10, the card documents enable_thinking, on by default and False per request, and preserve_thinking for earlier turns, and names the nanbeige reasoning parser, which returns the reasoning apart from the answer. Context 10, 262,144 tokens, which the card says the model supports and config.json gives as max_position_embeddings. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Spark-X2.6-4B 70

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 10 of 25, the format lives only in the template and the spark25 parser name only in the SGLang command. Trained tool calling 20, the template renders several calls in one turn. Structured output 0, not documented. Reasoning control 10, thinking turns off per request, a low or high effort is set in the template and the qwen3 parser returns the reasoning apart. Context 10, 1,048,576 tokens with no scaling.

Nanbeige4.2-3B 55

File safety 15, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files (25). Provenance 15, the files sit in the Nanbeige organisation (Nanbeige LLM Lab), which the lab's arXiv report for this model links, so the publisher's own account, although the Hub hasn't verified it (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 5, General cautions: the limitations section says outputs may be inaccurate, biased or harmful. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, no threshold and no clause letting the licensor change or revoke it. Security programme 5, BOSS Zhipin runs a security response centre for reporting flaws in its products, as read for the Nanbeige4.3-33B listing (5), though nothing links it to the model. 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 55.

Spark-X2.6-4B 50

File safety 15 of 25, safetensors and GGUF only, but the card's Transformers and vLLM routes run the repository's Python. Provenance 15, the files are in SparkLLM's own Hub organisation, which its GitHub docs name, and every file has a checksum, though neither organisation is verified and no company site was found. Safety evaluation 0 and agent guidance 0, none published. Licence risk 15, plain Apache 2.0 that hasn't changed. Security programme 5 of 10, a private reporting route and email in SparkLLM's community repository, with no public advisories.