Open Models

Phi alternatives

Explore 8 options alongside Phi (Microsoft), a product in Open Models.

Candidates share an existing guide group, a comparison, or specific tags within the same category. This shortlist is not a ranking or a test result.

Gemma

Listed together in guide “Open-source AI models”

Google's family of lightweight open-weight models derived from the same research as Gemini, currently in the Gemma 4 generation.

Open (open weights/source) Gemma Terms of Use

Use cases

  • Running capable models locally on consumer hardware
  • On-device and edge AI applications
  • Fine-tuning small models for focused tasks

Pricing: Gemma weights are free to download under the Gemma license; hosted inference is available through Google and third parties at usage prices.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-10.

OLMo

Listed together in guide “Open-source AI models”

Fully open large language model family from Ai2, released with its training data, code, and weights.

Open (open weights/source) Apache-2.0

Use cases

  • Academic research on LLM training dynamics
  • Auditing model behavior against known training data
  • Building on a transparent, commercially usable base

Pricing: OLMo models, data, and code are entirely free under Apache 2.0; users bear only their own compute costs.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-10-10.

Baichuan

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Open-weight bilingual LLM family from Beijing-based Baichuan Intelligence, now focused on medical AI with its Baichuan-M reasoning models.

Open (open weights/source) Baichuan Community License

Use cases

  • Building Chinese-language NLP applications on open weights
  • Research on bilingual large language models
  • Medical AI assistants based on the Baichuan-M series

Pricing: Open-weight Baichuan models are free to download for research, with licensing terms for commercial use; hosted APIs are billed by usage.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-10.

Command R

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Cohere's open-weight LLM family optimized for retrieval-augmented generation and tool use; succeeded by Command A as Cohere's flagship.

Open (open weights/source) CC-BY-NC-4.0

Use cases

  • Enterprise RAG assistants grounded in company documents
  • Building agents that call external tools and APIs
  • Research on open-weight instruction-tuned models

Pricing: Model weights are free for non-commercial research under a CC-BY-NC license; commercial access is via Cohere's usage-priced API and enterprise deployments.

Pricing ↗ · Documentation ↗ · Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-10-09.

DBRX

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Open-weight mixture-of-experts LLM released by Databricks in 2024; retired from Databricks serving in 2025, though the weights remain available.

Open (open weights/source) Databricks Open Model License

Use cases

  • Research on mixture-of-experts model architectures
  • Self-hosted LLM deployments on enterprise infrastructure
  • Fine-tuning experiments on a large open base model

Pricing: DBRX weights are free to download under the Databricks Open Model License; running the model requires the user's own infrastructure, and Databricks no longer serves it as a hosted model.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-10.

DeepSeek

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Open-weight LLM family and chat assistant from Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, known for strong reasoning models.

Open (open weights/source) MIT (DeepSeek-V3 repository code); DeepSeek Model License (DeepSeek-V3 Base and Chat weights)

Use cases

  • Math, coding, and analytical tasks that need explicit reasoning
  • Self-hosting open-weight models for privacy or cost control
  • Cost-sensitive API integrations

Pricing: The chat assistant is free; the developer API is usage-priced, and open-weight models can be self-hosted without license fees.

Pricing ↗ · Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-10-13.

Falcon

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Family of open-weight large language models developed by the Technology Innovation Institute (TII).

Open (open weights/source) TII Falcon License

Use cases

  • Self-hosted chatbots and text generation
  • Research on large-scale open models
  • Fine-tuning for domain-specific applications

Pricing: Falcon models are free to download and use commercially under permissive TII licenses; costs come only from the compute used to run them.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-10.

GLM

Related: shares the task Running models yourself

Family of open-weight large language models from Zhipu AI, spanning general, reasoning, and coding-focused variants.

Open (open weights/source) MIT

Use cases

  • Self-hosting a capable open LLM for products
  • Agentic coding via GLM coding plans and APIs
  • Research on bilingual Chinese-English models

Pricing: GLM open weights are free under permissive licenses; Zhipu's hosted APIs and coding subscription plans are paid by usage or monthly fee.

Sources

This record was last reviewed on 2026-09-10.

Full Phi profile → · All Open Models products →