Memory tier - verified
Open models that fit in 8 GB
14 open-weight models of 63 in this directory fit in 8 GB of memory, sorted by total parameters, largest first.
14 models
Total params, largest first| Commercial | Ollama | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gemma 4 12Bgoogle/gemma-4-12B-it | 12B | 6.7 GB4bit MLX | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | gemma4:12b | |
Qwen3.5-9BQwen/Qwen3.5-9B | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen) | 9.7B | 5.7 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | qwen3.5:9b |
Ministral 3 8B Instruct 2512mistralai/Ministral-3-8B-Instruct-2512 | Mistral AI | 8.9B | 5.2 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | ministral-3:8b |
IBM Granite 4.2 8Bibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b | IBM | 8.8B | 4.9 GB4bit MLX | 131K | Commercial use: Yes | granite4.2:8b |
Cohere Command R7B (12-2024)CohereLabs/c4ai-command-r7b-12-2024 | Cohere | 8B | 4.5 GB4bit MLX | 131K | Commercial use: No | command-r7b:7b |
Gemma 4 E4Bgoogle/gemma-4-E4B-it | 8B | 5.0 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 131K | Commercial use: Yes | gemma4:e4b | |
Gemma 4 E2Bgoogle/gemma-4-E2B-it | 5.1B | 3.1 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 131K | Commercial use: Yes | gemma4:e2b | |
Qwen3.5-4BQwen/Qwen3.5-4B | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen) | 4.7B | 2.7 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | qwen3.5:4b |
Ministral 3 3B Instruct 2512mistralai/Ministral-3-3B-Instruct-2512 | Mistral AI | 3.8B | 2.1 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | ministral-3:3b |
Phi-4-mini-instructmicrosoft/Phi-4-mini-instruct | Microsoft | 3.8B | 2.2 GB4bit MLX | 131K | Commercial use: Yes | phi4-mini:3.8b |
Phi-4-mini-reasoningmicrosoft/Phi-4-mini-reasoning | Microsoft | 3.8B | 2.2 GB4bit MLX | 131K | Commercial use: Yes | phi4-mini-reasoning:3.8b |
Liquid AI LFM2.5-2.6BLiquidAI/LFM2.5-2.6B | Liquid AI | 2.7B | 1.6 GB4bit MLX | 131K | Commercial use: Conditions | -No Ollama tag |
Qwen3.5-2BQwen/Qwen3.5-2B | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen) | 2.3B | 1.3 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | qwen3.5:2b |
Qwen3.5-0.8BQwen/Qwen3.5-0.8B | Alibaba Cloud (Qwen) | 0.9B | 0.5 GBQ4_K_M GGUF | 262K | Commercial use: Yes | qwen3.5:0.8b |
More memory? See what fits in 16 GB or browse every local model.
FAQ
How many open models fit in 8 GB?
14 of 63 models in this directory have a listed download of 6.8 GB or less, 85% of 8 GB.
What is the largest model that fits in 8 GB?
By total parameters, Gemma 4 12B (12B), whose smallest listed download is 6.7 GB, the 4bit MLX build from mlx-community/gemma-4-12B-it-4bit. Largest is a size, not a quality ranking.
Which of these can I use commercially?
12 of the 14 ship under licenses that allow commercial use outright. The license column shows the rest: some allow it with conditions and some do not.
Why 85% of 8 GB?
The download is only the weights. Running a model also needs memory for the context (the KV cache grows with every token you keep) and for the operating system and other apps, so this site leaves 15% free as a rule of thumb. A short context needs less; a long one can need more.
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