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

SmolLM3-3B vs WeVisOne-VL-2B

SmolLM3-3B and WeVisOne-VL-2B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C). 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

SmolLM3-3B C

Best for Agents that want a small, fully transparent tool-calling cousin on a laptop, CPU or edge device

Ahead on

  • Reach, 85 against 70
  • Risk, 65 against 55
  • Agent interface, 80 against 70
  • Documentation and upkeep, 74 against 48

Watch for

65,536 tokens trained; 131,072 needs a YaRN edit to config.json

WeVisOne-VL-2B C

Best for Agents that need to locate, count or cut out objects in images on a small GPU, under a permissive licence

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

Watch for

The pixel decoder ships as a pickle file

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 SmolLM3-3B +26

SmolLM3-3B 74

Model card 14, it covers limitations, architecture, parameters, context and languages but has no intended-use section and leaves the June 2025 cut-off to the chat template. Training data 20, the datasets, mixture weights and post-training set are published with sources and sizes. Last change 20, Hugging Face's ONNX build changed its tokenizer config on 28 October 2026, though the main repository hasn't changed since 10 September 2025. Responsiveness 10, staff answered 14 of 36 discussions, none since November 2025. Version policy 5, a first release never replaced, with no dated notes. File health 5, template and tokenizer reports wait with no reply.

WeVisOne-VL-2B 48

Model card 8, Intended use, limitations and the architecture are on the card. Training data 5, A general description in the README of a data engine and over 100 million annotated images, with no sources named and no cut-off. Last change 20, the last commit, on 28 October 2026, put the weights back in BF16, 13 days before this check. Responsiveness 0, the one discussion that isn't a pull request (23 October 2026) has no reply from a tencent member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the Qwen3-VL classes, and the card names mask_decoder.pt as required and it's there. 8 + 5 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 48.

Reach SmolLM3-3B +15

SmolLM3-3B 85

Memory 30, the smallest 4-bit build Hugging Face publishes is its own ONNX q4f16 at 2.1 GB, about 2.5 GB with the fifth added, and the full BF16 files that the counted runtimes load come to about 7.4 GB, both under 16 GB. Runtimes 20, released Transformers carries the model code, llama.cpp knows the architecture, and vLLM and SGLang run it through their Transformers backends in released versions; Ollama has no library entry and LM Studio's catalogue has none, so those two earn nothing. Builds 10, Hugging Face's ONNX repository has 4-bit builds, one of the checklist's kinds, and int8 builds, which are neither FP8 nor GGUF. They run in ONNX Runtime and Transformers.js rather than the runtimes above. Terms 15, plain Apache 2.0, scored by its terms since the repository holds no LICENSE file. Download 10, not gated. Hosted 0, no inference provider is listed for it on the Hub and none of the provider lists checked carries it.

WeVisOne-VL-2B 70

Memory 30, the only build from Tencent is the BF16 safetensors file with its decoder, 4.92 GB, and 4.92 GB × 1.2 = 5.9 GB, within 16 GB. No runtime library has a build. Runtimes 15, the architecture is Qwen3VLForConditionalGeneration, which vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 run from the safetensors file, three at 5 each. Builds 0, Tencent publishes the BF16 weights only. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the card's metadata with the LICENSE file in the repository, and nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it. 30 + 15 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 70.

Risk SmolLM3-3B +10

SmolLM3-3B 65

File safety 25, safetensors only and nothing from the repository runs on load or to build prompts. Provenance 15, the HuggingFaceTB organisation linked from Hugging Face's launch post, with a SHA-256 for each shard. Safety evaluation 0, none published. Agent guidance 5, only the general cautions in the card's Limitations section. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with nothing added and a working licence link. Security programme 5, huggingface.co has a valid security.txt and Transformers has a security policy; whether advisories are handled in public couldn't be checked from our session, so that half is scored as absent.

WeVisOne-VL-2B 55

File safety 15, the backbone is safetensors, but mask_decoder.pt, a PyTorch pickle the card calls a required component, sits beside it. Provenance 15, the files sit in the tencent organisation, which Tencent's GitHub repository for the model links to (10), and the Hub gives a SHA-256 for the large files (5). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card or in the README. Agent guidance 5, General cautions: the card says the release is for research, isn't for autonomous high-impact decisions or identifying individuals, and lists where masks go wrong. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no use policy, no threshold and no right to change the terms. Security programme 5, Tencent's Security Response Center takes vulnerability reports company-wide, as the Hy3 listing records (5). 15 + 15 + 0 + 5 + 15 + 5 = 55.

Agent interface SmolLM3-3B +10

SmolLM3-3B 80

Chat template 20, a Jinja file in the repository. Tool-calling format 25, the card says how tools are declared, how calls come back and which vLLM parser to use. Trained tool calling 20, the template invites one or more calls per turn, each in its own block. Structured output 0, nothing documents asking the weights for JSON. Reasoning control 10, thinking turns off per request through the kwarg or a system-prompt flag, and the reasoning comes back in think tags. Context 5, trained at 65,536 tokens, with 131,072 only through YaRN.

WeVisOne-VL-2B 70

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (5,292 characters), Qwen3-VL's template. Tool-calling format 25, Read for a perception model as what it takes and returns. Trained tool calling 10, Read for a perception model as the inputs it was trained to use. Structured output 15, Read for a perception model as typed outputs. Reasoning control 0, the card says it writes structured output directly with no chain-of-thought reasoning. Context 0, Tencent states no context length for it. 20 + 25 + 10 + 15 + 0 + 0 = 70.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runSmolLM3-3BWeVisOne-VL-2BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258570SmolLM3-3B +15
Risk20%206555SmolLM3-3B +10
Agent interface10%108070SmolLM3-3B +10
Documentation and upkeep10%107448SmolLM3-3B +26
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactSmolLM3-3BWeVisOne-VL-2B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorHugging FaceTencent (WeChat Vision)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2025-09-102026-10-28
Terms last updatedno document linkednot read yet
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviews3.3/5 (4)none

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

SmolLM3-3B

A tiny, fully open cousin with documented tool calling and switchable thinking, for local subtasks and routing on laptops and CPUs. It needs about 8 GB in BF16, or under 3 GB in Hugging Face's 4-bit ONNX build. The main risks are a 64K native context, no safety results and no staff reply in its discussions since November 2025.

WeVisOne-VL-2B

A small Apache 2.0 perception model that finds, counts, reads and cuts out what you name in an image, and says None when it isn't there. Boxes and points run in vLLM, SGLang or Transformers. Masks and mattes need Tencent's package and a pickle file. Two weeks old, with no questions answered yet and no safety results.

Before you call either

SmolLM3-3B

  1. Start it with vllm serve HuggingFaceTB/SmolLM3-3B --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser=hermes, or tool calls come back as text
  2. Pass chat_template_kwargs with enable_thinking false for short tasks, since thinking is on by default; a /think or /no_think flag in the system prompt overrides the kwarg
  3. Put earlier tool calls in the assistant message content, since the template ignores a tool_calls field when it renders history
  4. Add the YaRN rope_scaling block (factor 2.0, original 65536) to config.json before sending more than 65,536 tokens
  5. Use temperature 0.6 and top_p 0.95, the card's recommended sampling
  6. Needs Transformers v4.53.0 or later; for llama.cpp use a GGUF from ggml-org or another converter, since Hugging Face publishes none
  7. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding

WeVisOne-VL-2B

  1. Use Tencent's package: WeVisOneVL("tencent/WeVisOne-VL-2B", backend="vllm") then model.predict(image, task=..., query=...)
  2. Tasks are detection, referring, point, count_box, count_point, ocr, ocr_grounding, segmentation and matting
  3. A None answer means the target isn't in the image. Treat it as a result, not an error
  4. mask_decoder.pt is a pickle. Load it only from the tencent repository, and check its SHA-256 against the Hub's
  5. Send one image a turn. Video grids are rejected by the decoder
  6. The card says it isn't for identifying individuals or for high-impact decisions on its own

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, SmolLM3-3B or WeVisOne-VL-2B?

SmolLM3-3B and WeVisOne-VL-2B score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 61 (C) and 61 (C).

Other comparisons with SmolLM3-3B or WeVisOne-VL-2B

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