Best open-weights LLM (October 2026)
As of 12 Oct 2026, the best open-weights LLM on independent benchmarks is Kimi K3 (max) by Moonshot AI (BenchLeader Index 65.5), ahead of MiMo-V2.6-Pro (BenchLeader Index 64.8) and GLM 5.3 (max) (BenchLeader Index 64.0).
Models whose weights you can download and run yourself, ranked on the BenchLeader Index. The licence varies by model; check it on the model page before you ship.
236 models qualify · data as of 12 Oct 2026 · rebuilt once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC)
Kimi K3 max#1 here: BenchLeader Index 65.5Best value
MiMo-V2.6-Flash most index points per dollar among the top 15 (59.7 at $0.175/M)Fastest of the top 15
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash max217 output tokens per second| # | Model | Index | Price $/M | Speed tok/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kimi K3maxMoonshot AI | 65.5 | $6.00 | 41 |
| 2 | MiMo-V2.6-ProXiaomi | 64.8 | $0.548 | 43 |
| 3 |  GLM 5.3maxZhipu AI | 64.0 | $2.15 | 83 |
| 4 |  Qwen3.8 2.4T A95BAlibaba | 63.3 | $3.00 | 37 |
| 5 | DeepSeek V4 PromaxDeepSeek | 62.8 | $1.98 | 93 |
| 6 | GLM 5.2maxZhipu AI | 62.6 | $2.15 | 82 |
| 7 | GLM 5.3 FlashZhipu AI | 62.2 | $0.238 | 53 |
| 8 | DeepSeek V4.1 FlashmaxDeepSeek | 61.8 | $0.525 | 217 |
| 9 | Qwen3.8-Flash-NextAlibaba | 59.8 | $0.230 | 56 |
| 10 | MiMo-V2.6-FlashXiaomi | 59.7 | $0.175 | 58 |
| 11 | GLM-5thinkingZhipu AI | 58.9 | $1.55 | 70 |
| 12 | Qwen3.8 27BxhighAlibaba | 58.5 | $1.13 | 46 |
| 13 | Kimi K2.6thinkingMoonshot AI | 58.5 | $1.71 | 62 |
| 14 |  Motif 3Motif Technologies | 57.9 | – | – |
| 15 |  Mistral Large 4Mistral AI | 57.8 | $2.06 | 60 |
Full ranked list (236 models) · Kimi K3 vs MiMo-V2.6-Pro · Methodology
Best open-weights LLM: questions
- What is the best open-weights LLM in October 2026?
- As of 12 Oct 2026, the best open-weights LLM on independent benchmarks is Kimi K3 (max) by Moonshot AI (BenchLeader Index 65.5), ahead of MiMo-V2.6-Pro (BenchLeader Index 64.8) and GLM 5.3 (max) (BenchLeader Index 64.0). BenchLeader reconciles 210 benchmarks from 42 benchmark publishers and rebuilds the ranking once a day (the run starts at 22:03 UTC).
- Which is the best value?
- MiMo-V2.6-Flash gives the most BenchLeader Index points per dollar among the top 15 here: 59.7 at $0.175 per million tokens blended, against $6.00 for Kimi K3.
- How is this ranked?
- Models whose weights you can download and run yourself, ranked on the BenchLeader Index. The licence varies by model; check it on the model page before you ship. Every score comes from an independent publisher and links to its source on the model page; self-reported launch numbers are excluded.
Cite as: BenchLeader, “Best open-weights LLM (October 2026)”, https://www.benchleader.com/best/open-weights-llm, data as of 12 Oct 2026.