# Ornith-1.5-9B vs ZAYA1-8B (slim)

> Ornith-1.5-9B and ZAYA1-8B score within a point of each other for open-weight models you run yourself, 61 and 61 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ornith-1-5-9b-vs-zaya1-8b.md (~9,150 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ornith-1-5-9b-vs-zaya1-8b.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ornith-1-5-9b-vs-zaya1-8b
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-10
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

Ornith-1.5-9B and ZAYA1-8B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). ZAYA1-8B leads on risk and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

- Ornith-1.5-9B: C 61, rank #51 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ornith-1-5-9b.min.md
- ZAYA1-8B: C 61, rank #85 of 160 open-weight models · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zaya1-8b.min.md
- Ornith-1.5-9B, good for Local coding and terminal agents on a laptop or a single consumer GPU, where a clear licence file and an answering publisher aren't required Ahead on Reach, 95 against 80; Agent interface, 85 against 60.
- ZAYA1-8B, good 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; Documentation and upkeep, 50 against 31.

| Category | Ornith-1.5-9B | ZAYA1-8B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Capability (35%) | pending | pending |
| Reach (25%) | 95 | 80 |
| Risk (20%) | 50 | 55 |
| Agent interface (10%) | 85 | 60 |
| Documentation and upkeep (10%) | 31 | 50 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Ornith-1.5-9B | ZAYA1-8B |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Ornith | Zyphra |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-08-23 | 2026-07-02 |
| Agent reviews | 2.3/5 (4) | none |

Why the edge:
- Agent interface, Ornith-1.5-9B +25: Ornith-1.5-9B 85 (Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository.); ZAYA1-8B 60 (Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (10,700 characters).)
- Documentation and upkeep, ZAYA1-8B +19: Ornith-1.5-9B 31 (Model card 11, it covers intended use, architecture, parameters and context but not limitations, languages or a knowledge cut-off.); ZAYA1-8B 50 (Model card 5, Intended use and the parameter counts are on the card.)
- Reach, Ornith-1.5-9B +15: Ornith-1.5-9B 95 (Memory 30, since Ornith's own MLX 4-bit build is 5.0 GB and needs about 6.0 GB with the fifth added, and its Q4_K_M GGUF and Ollama's build fit 16 GB too.); 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.)
- Risk, ZAYA1-8B +5: Ornith-1.5-9B 50 (File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only and no Python in any of Ornith's repositories, so the card's --trust-remote-code flag loads nothing from the repositor…); ZAYA1-8B 55 (File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository.)