Qwen2.5-Coder 7B Instruct
Alibaba · Code · 7B · 131k context · Released 12 November 2024
Commercial use permitted
Open weights
Runs on CPU
Apple Silicon
Alibaba's code-specialised 7B model, strong at code completion and generation well beyond what its size would suggest. A practical choice for a local coding assistant on a mid-range GPU, and permissively licensed.
Strengths
- Genuinely capable at code for its size
- Apache 2.0, so no commercial-use conditions to reason about
- Runs comfortably on a 12GB card at a good quantisation
Weaknesses
- A 7B model still trails larger models on complex, multi-file reasoning
- General chat and non-code tasks are not its focus
- Long-context code understanding degrades well before the 128k ceiling
Hardware requirements
| Quantisation | Approx. VRAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | ~4.7GB | Common default, fits an 8GB card with short context |
| Q8_0 | ~8GB | Near-lossless, a good fit for 12GB cards |
| FP16 | ~15GB | Full precision, needs 16GB or more |
Also runs on CPU (slower). Optimised builds available for Apple Silicon.
Licence
Apache 2.0 — read the licence
Availability
- Official page
- Hugging Face
- ollama run qwen2.5-coder:7b
Recommended for
- Local code autocomplete and generation on a 12GB card
- A permissively licensed coding model for commercial work
- Pairing with an editor tool like Continue or Aider
Related guides
Glossary
Catalogue entry last verified 15 January 2026. Specifications change; verify anything you are about to spend money on.