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The best small open LLMs (under 4B parameters)

Every open LLM under 4 billion parameters in our catalog — the tiny, fast, edge-friendly tier that runs almost anywhere, including CPUs and phones. Ranked by popularity/recognition with the honest $0 cost to run each locally. You judge which small model is sharpest for your task.

How this is ranked: Objective size cut (under 4B is a catalog fact). Within the tier we sort by popularity (a real signal: HF downloads/recognition), explicitly framed as 'most-recognized small models — judge quality yourself,' not 'this tiny model is best.'

Showing the top 15 of 145. See all →

Want the full tier? All 145 tiny (under 4B) models →

More: all "best" lists · Outcome Lab · all models

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