Qwen3 8B
Alibaba · Text generation · 8B · 131k context · Released 29 April 2025
Commercial use permitted
Open weights
Runs on CPU
Apple Silicon
Qwen3 8B is a dense model that can operate in two modes: a fast direct mode, and a thinking mode that works through problems step by step before answering. That flexibility, combined with a permissive licence and a 128k context window, makes it a strong general-purpose choice at a size that fits modest hardware.
Strengths
- Strong reasoning and instruction following for an 8B model
- Optional thinking mode for harder tasks, switchable off when you want speed
- Apache 2.0, so no commercial-use conditions to reason about
- Long 128k context and broad multilingual support
Weaknesses
- Thinking mode uses more tokens and time, so it is not free
- An 8B model still trails larger ones on complex, multi-step work
- Qwen has published few concrete benchmark figures, so compare on your own tasks
Hardware requirements
| Quantisation | Approx. VRAM | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Q4_K_M | ~5GB | Common default, fits an 8GB card with short context |
| Q8_0 | ~8.5GB | Near-lossless, comfortable on a 12GB card |
| FP16 | ~16GB | 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 qwen3:8b
Recommended for
- A capable general-purpose model on a 12GB card
- Everyday assistant tasks where you want the option of deeper reasoning
- A permissively licensed model for commercial work
Related guides
Glossary
Catalogue entry last verified 30 July 2026. Specifications change; verify anything you are about to spend money on.