Best Open Source LLMs in 2026: We Reviewed 7 Models

This post evaluates and compares seven open-source LLMs (GLM 5.2, Kimi K3, Kimi K2.7 Code, DeepSeek-V4-Pro, DeepSeek-V4-Flash, MiniMax M3, Qwen3.7 Plus, gpt-oss-120b, and Gemma 4 31B IT) based on benchmark quality, context window, modality support, and license terms. It highlights Kimi K3 as a benchmark leader awaiting full weights and listing, and GLM 5.2 as the leading open model available on Fireworks for broad reasoning, coding, and long-context agents. The post details the evaluation methodology, including reasoning and knowledge, software engineering performance, and provides key takeaways for selecting models based on specific use cases and constraints. It also includes a section on 'Why run these models on Fireworks,' emphasizing performance at scale and deployment options.