# Open-weight model

**Source:** https://promtable.com/glossary/open-weight-model

> An open-weight model has publicly released weights downloadable + runnable by anyone — Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, Flux Schnell / Dev, Stable Diffusion are 2026 open-weight families. Differs from open source (which would include training code + data).

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An open-weight model has publicly released weights downloadable + runnable by anyone — Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, Flux Schnell / Dev, Stable Diffusion are 2026 open-weight families. Differs from open source (which would include training code + data).

Open-weight ≠ open source. Open weights means the trained parameters are publicly downloadable + usable under a license — but the training data, training code, and reproduction recipe may not be. Most 'open' LLMs in 2026 are open-weight, not fully open source: Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, Gemma, Phi for text; Flux Schnell / Dev, SDXL, Stable Diffusion 3 for image. Licenses vary: Apache 2.0 / MIT (broadest, commercial-friendly), custom (Llama license restricts > 700M MAU products), source-available (e.g., Flux Pro is API-only). Open-weight unlocks self-host, fine-tuning, embedded deployment, and security audit — and forces frontier labs to compete on quality + tooling rather than weights alone.

## When to use

- Self-host deployments.
- EU residency / data sovereignty.
- Fine-tuning for niche domains.

## Common mistakes

- Treating open-weight as fully open source — license restrictions may still apply.
- Assuming open-weight quality matches frontier — closed models still lead on hardest tasks in 2026.

## Related terms

- [self-host-llm](https://promtable.com/glossary/self-host-llm)
- [model-weights-license](https://promtable.com/glossary/model-weights-license)

*Last updated: 2026-06-01*
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Original page: https://promtable.com/glossary/open-weight-model
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