ModelsBenchmark resultLarge Language Models · Evaluation & Benchmarks1 source · Oct 16, 2026

The actual state of open-weight models vs. frontier models

It's clear that today’s SOTA (state-of-the-art) models remain ahead of open-source models.

Proof1 community thread

However, if we filter the benchmarks correctly, a different picture emerges compared to what we saw just a few months ago.
Today, open-source models are outperforming Sonnet 5, a significant shift, considering it took many months to surpass the performance levels of Sonnet 4.6 or 3.7.
Honestly, I had expected "Spark Open" to be on par with version 1.2; nonetheless, when the benchmarks are viewed in the proper context, this is excellent news for the open-source ecosystem.
Now it is up to models like Qwen 4 and GLM to further tip the scales, but the real takeaway is that for those who do not strictly require Sonnet 5 or Astra, it is now entirely feasible to forgo paid, proprietary models.

[1]The actual state of open-weight models vs. frontier models
r/LocalLLaMA (top, daily) · Oct 16, 09:27 AM
It's clear that today’s SOTA (state-of-the-art) models remain ahead of open-source models.
However, if we filter the benchmarks correctly, a different picture emerges compared to what we saw just a few months ago.

Extractive summary: sentences quoted from the sources.

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