HT Sherpa

A model is the software that produces AI answers. This guide compares models and tools. New to this? Choose a setup path first. Use the lists below when you want more detail.

New words, in plain language
Local / cloud
Local runs on your computer. Cloud runs on computers managed online.
Model / tokens
A model produces AI answers. Tokens are small pieces of text; some services charge for the tokens used.
Account / identity
An account is a sign-in. Your cloud identity is the account you use for online services.
Connector / permissions
A connector links an AI tool to another service. Permissions are the access you allow.

Models & Tools · Week of 5 October 2026

This week’s open models — ranked, by country, and by whether they fit your computer.

Every three days we re-read Hugging Face (downloads, likes, last update) and re-rank the same nine in each list. The writing is ours. The numbers are theirs. Tools stay in a fixed order — they are not model cards. We do not invent scores, and we do not list a 1.6-trillion-parameter model as a laptop.

Hugging Face numbers pulled 5 October 2026.

Choose your pathway

Compare local, hosted, hybrid and private-server setup, and see what’s available today.

Laptop and desktop · top 9

On your computer

These nine fit a machine you already own. Memory, not marketing, decides which one.

  1. United States · Google

    1

    Gemma 4 26B A4B

    Google

    A larger brain that only wakes a few billion parameters at a time. The best local model on a 32 GB Mac this week.

    Runs on your computer · 24–32 GB (4-bit) · Apache 2.0

    13M downloads · 1.6k likes · updated 20 July 2026

  2. United States · Google

    2

    Gemma 4 31B

    Google

    Google’s dense 31B. One brain, no mixture. Apache. It needs a 32 GB machine and will not fit a 16 GB laptop.

    Runs on your computer · 24–32 GB (4-bit) · Apache 2.0

    9.9M downloads · 4k likes · updated 20 July 2026

  3. United States · OpenAI

    3

    gpt-oss 20B

    OpenAI

    OpenAI’s first open weights since GPT-2. Built to run in 16 GB. Apache license. Very widely downloaded.

    Runs on your computer · 16 GB (native 4-bit) · Apache 2.0

    6.3M downloads · 5.1k likes · updated 26 August 2025

  4. China · Alibaba

    4

    Qwen 3.6 35B-A3B

    Alibaba

    A 35-billion-parameter model that only runs three billion at a time. Laptop-honest mixture-of-experts.

    Runs on your computer · 16 GB (4-bit) · Apache 2.0

    3.4M downloads · 2.9k likes · updated 24 April 2026

  5. China · Alibaba

    5

    Qwen 3.6 27B

    Alibaba

    The best open writer you can still keep on one machine. Multilingual. Apache. The download numbers this week are enormous.

    Runs on your computer · 16–24 GB (4-bit ~17 GB) · Apache 2.0

    2.4M downloads · 2.3k likes · updated 24 April 2026

  6. United States · Google

    6

    Gemma 4 12B

    Google

    The honest everyday model for a 16 GB laptop. Clear writing, Apache license, no account required after download.

    Runs on your computer · 16 GB (4-bit) · Apache 2.0

    1.8M downloads · 1.6k likes · updated 20 July 2026

  7. China · DeepSeek

    7

    DeepSeek V4 Flash

    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek’s smaller V4. MIT license. Quantized, it can live on a strong laptop or a single workstation GPU.

    Runs on your computer · 32–64 GB (quantized) · MIT

    1M downloads · 2.3k likes · updated 22 June 2026

  8. United States · Microsoft

    8

    Phi-4

    Microsoft

    Small, sharp, MIT-licensed. Strong at exams and short reasoning. Less warm as a letter-writer.

    Runs on your computer · 12–16 GB (4-bit) · MIT

    427k downloads · 2.3k likes · updated 14 July 2026

  9. United States · Microsoft

    9

    Phi-4 Mini

    Microsoft

    The model we put on an 8 GB machine. It will not write a novel. It will draft and explain.

    Runs on your computer · 8 GB · MIT

    363k downloads · 847 likes · updated 10 December 2025