LFM3-1.7B vs LFM3-Omni-2B

Official Liquid AI LFM3-1.7B edge-inference figure from the Hugging Face card — LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B card assets/lfm3-edge-inference.webp. Source · License: Liquid AI product image.

Official LFM3-Omni architecture figure from the LiquidAI/LFM3-Omni-2B model card — LiquidAI/LFM3-Omni-2B card assets/lfm3-omni-architecture-light.png. Source · License: Liquid AI product image.

Verdict. Pick LFM3-1.7B if you want Liquid AI’s text-only 1.73B / 256K edge card (GGUF already 129,608 downloads). Pick LFM3-Omni-2B if you need one checkpoint that takes text/image/video/audio and answers in text plus 24 kHz speech (32K). Same LFM Open License v1.0 (USD 10 million commercial-use threshold). They are siblings, not the same weights. Vendor benches stay vendor. We have no sourced bake-off.

Compare LFM3-1.7B and LFM3-Omni-2B.

Dimension	LFM3-1.7B	LFM3-Omni-2B	Source
Job	text-generation only	any-to-any (text/image/video/audio in; text + speech out)	Official cards / HF pipeline_tag
License	LFM Open License v1.0 (USD 10M commercial-use threshold)	LFM Open License v1.0 (USD 10M commercial-use threshold)	Hugging Face LICENSE files
Gating	No	No	Hugging Face API
Developer	Liquid AI	Liquid AI	Official cards
Parameters	1.73B (safetensors 1,728,801,536)	2.17B (safetensors 2,166,928,384)	Official READMEs / HF API
Context	256K	32K (input + output)	Official READMEs
Architecture	Lfm3ForCausalLM, 24-layer tri-hybrid	Lfm3OmniForConditionalGeneration (LFM3 + vision + audio + LiquidCodec)	Official cards / HF config
Hugging Face likes (lead)	635 (2026-11-01)	227 (2026-10-31)	Hugging Face API
GGUF sibling downloads	129,608 (2026-11-01)	38,731 (2026-10-31)	Hugging Face API
Quality vs ChatGPT	Not independently tested	Not independently tested	n/a

When to choose which

On-device text chat / 256K context: LFM3-1.7B — Text card. Omni context is 32K. Not a quality rank.
Image, video, or audio in: LFM3-Omni-2B — Omni pipeline_tag is any-to-any. 1.7B is text-generation only.
Speech out / local TTS-style replies: LFM3-Omni-2B — Card TTS mode. Not an ElevenLabs studio. See ElevenLabs alternatives.
Same LFM Open License v1.0 grant: Tie — Both LICENSE files are v1.0 with the USD 10M threshold. Not legal advice.

Read the entity pages: LFM3-1.7B and LFM3-Omni-2B. Family hub: LFM3. Both hang off closed LLM APIs and ChatGPT alternatives. Omni also hangs off ElevenLabs alternatives for speech-out. 1.7B ≠ Omni.

Comparison graphic: LFM3-1.7B text 1.73B / 256K versus LFM3-Omni-2B 2.17B any-to-any / 32K under the same LFM Open License v1.0 — forkalt comparison graphic (2026-11-01). Not a ranking.

Why this comparison exists

The family page LFM3 already lists both cards. People still search the 1.7B name against the Omni-2B name. This page keeps them distinct with sourced rows only. It is identification, not a bake-off.

Iris-3B vs pages that already get search traffic stay on Iris-3B vs Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo and MiniCPM-V 4.7 vs Iris-3B. Those are generation / VLM-vs-T2I jobs, not Liquid family siblings.

Sourced snapshot (2026-11-01 / 2026-10-31)

Field	LFM3-1.7B	LFM3-Omni-2B
Host	huggingface.co/LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B (not gated)	huggingface.co/LiquidAI/LFM3-Omni-2B (not gated)
HF likes / downloads	635 / 32,933 (2026-11-01)	227 / 3,080 (2026-10-31)
License	LFM Open License v1.0	LFM Open License v1.0
Size	1.73B text	2.17B omni
Job	text-generation	any-to-any + speech out
Context	256K	32K
Official local path	GGUF / MLX / ONNX / FP8 named	GGUF / MLX-4bit / ONNX named
Quality vs ChatGPT	Not independently tested	Not independently tested

License

Both LICENSE files are LFM Open License v1.0. Commercial Use is conditioned on You/Legal Entity not exceeding USD 10,000,000 annual revenue. Above that threshold, Commercial Use is not licensed under that agreement. Qualified non-profits for non-commercial/research use are exempt from the threshold. Not legal advice.

How to choose

Need text / 256K / GGUF: LFM3-1.7B.
Need omni + speech out: LFM3-Omni-2B.
Need the whole ~2B family map: LFM3.
Need Liquid’s 24B/2.45B text MoE: LFM2.5-24B-A2B — LFM3 vs LFM2.5-24B-A2B.
Need Apache-2.0 ~4B dense: Spark-X2.6-4B.
Need a pixel editor, not a checkpoint: PhotoCraft vs GIMP.
Engine page: vLLM.

See also AI Chat & Agents and Models. Catalog: home. Editorial: About. Corrections: contact.

FAQ

Which one should I download first?

Need text only and a long 256K window — LFM3-1.7B (and its GGUF sibling). Need one file that sees images/audio and can speak — LFM3-Omni-2B. They do not substitute for each other.

Are these the same weights as LFM2.5-24B-A2B?

No. LFM2.5-24B-A2B is the earlier 24B/2.45B text MoE. Family-versus-that-MoE facts live on LFM3 vs LFM2.5-24B-A2B.

Why this pairing instead of an Iris-3B compare?

Searchers already confuse the two LFM3 cards (the Omni page spends a paragraph saying it is not 1.7B). Iris-3B is a text-to-image generator — a different modality. Iris traffic stays on Iris-3B vs Qwen-Image-2.1-Turbo and MiniCPM-V 4.7 vs Iris-3B.

Does Omni replace ElevenLabs?

No sourced bake-off. Speech-out is one omni mode, not a hosted voice studio. See ElevenLabs alternatives.

Sources & verification

Last verified 2026-11-01 · Last updated 2026-11-01· Edited by forkalt editors · Editorial policy

License notes are not legal advice. Read the original LICENSE. Trademark & disclaimer.