Local LLM Model Capability Matrix
Comprehensive reference for model selection in air-gapped/local environments. Updated January 2025.
Quick Reference
By Task Type
| Task |
Tier 1 (Best) |
Tier 2 (Good) |
Tier 3 (Basic) |
| Coding |
DeepSeek-V3, Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
Qwen2.5-Coder-14B, Phi-4 |
Qwen2.5-Coder-7B, CodeLlama-7B |
| Reasoning |
DeepSeek-R1, DeepSeek-V3 |
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-32B, Phi-4 |
DeepSeek-R1-Distill-8B, Gemma-2-9B |
| Analysis |
DeepSeek-V3 + Serena, Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
CodeLlama-34B-Instruct |
- |
| Documentation |
Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct, Llama-3.3-70B |
Mistral-Small-24B |
Mistral-Nemo-12B |
By VRAM Requirement
| VRAM |
Models |
| 3-6 GB |
Llama-3.2-3B, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-8B, Qwen2.5-Coder-7B |
| 7-10 GB |
Gemma-2-9B, Phi-4, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-14B, Qwen2.5-Coder-14B |
| 16-22 GB |
Mistral-Small-24B, Qwen2.5-Coder-32B, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-32B |
| 40-48 GB |
DeepSeek-V3, Llama-3.3-70B, Qwen2.5-72B, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-70B |
| 160+ GB |
DeepSeek-R1 (full) |
Top Performing Models (2024-2025)
DeepSeek-V3 (BEST OVERALL)
- Parameters: 685B MoE (37B active)
- Context Window: 128,000 tokens
- VRAM Required: 48 GB (Q4 quantized)
- Strengths: #1 open model, rivals GPT-4, excellent at coding
- Best For: Complex coding, reasoning, analysis
- Ollama:
ollama pull deepseek-v3
DeepSeek-R1 (BEST REASONING)
- Parameters: 671B
- Context Window: 128,000 tokens
- VRAM Required: 160 GB (full) / 48 GB (distilled)
- Strengths: Chain-of-thought reasoning, matches o1
- Best For: Complex problem solving, step-by-step reasoning
- Distill Variants: 70B, 32B, 14B, 8B, 7B, 1.5B
Qwen2.5-Coder-32B (BEST CODING)
- Parameters: 32B
- Context Window: 131,072 tokens
- VRAM Required: 22 GB
- Strengths: State-of-the-art code generation
- Best For: Code completion, debugging, refactoring
- Ollama:
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:32b
Coding Specialists
Tier 1 - Best Performance
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| DeepSeek-V3 |
128K |
48 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-v3 |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
131K |
22 GB |
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:32b |
| DeepSeek-Coder-V2 |
128K |
48 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-coder-v2 |
Tier 2 - Good Balance
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-14B |
131K |
10 GB |
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:14b |
| CodeLlama-34B |
100K |
20 GB |
ollama pull codellama:34b |
| Phi-4 |
16K |
10 GB |
ollama pull phi4 |
| StarCoder2-15B |
16K |
10 GB |
ollama pull starcoder2:15b |
Tier 3 - Minimal Resources
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-7B |
131K |
5 GB |
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:7b |
| DeepSeek-Coder-6.7B |
16K |
5 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-coder:6.7b |
| CodeLlama-7B |
16K |
5 GB |
ollama pull codellama:7b |
Reasoning Specialists
Tier 1 - Best Performance
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| DeepSeek-R1 |
128K |
160 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-r1 |
| DeepSeek-V3 |
128K |
48 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-v3 |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-70B |
128K |
42 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-r1:70b |
| Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct |
131K |
48 GB |
ollama pull qwen2.5:72b-instruct |
| Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct |
128K |
42 GB |
ollama pull llama3.3:70b |
Tier 2 - Good Balance
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-32B |
128K |
22 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-r1:32b |
| Mistral-Small-24B |
32K |
16 GB |
ollama pull mistral-small |
| Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct |
131K |
22 GB |
ollama pull qwen2.5:32b-instruct |
| Phi-4 |
16K |
10 GB |
ollama pull phi4 |
| Gemma-2-27B |
8K |
18 GB |
ollama pull gemma2:27b |
Tier 3 - Minimal Resources
| Model |
Context |
VRAM |
Ollama Command |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-14B |
128K |
10 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-r1:14b |
| DeepSeek-R1-Distill-8B |
128K |
6 GB |
ollama pull deepseek-r1:8b |
| Gemma-2-9B |
8K |
7 GB |
ollama pull gemma2:9b |
| Llama-3.2-3B |
128K |
3 GB |
ollama pull llama3.2:3b |
Analysis Specialists
Note: Analysis tasks REQUIRE Serena MCP for semantic code understanding
| Model |
VRAM |
Best For |
Requires Serena |
| DeepSeek-V3 |
48 GB |
Deep security audits |
Yes |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
22 GB |
Code review |
Yes |
| DeepSeek-Coder-V2 |
48 GB |
Vulnerability analysis |
Yes |
| CodeLlama-34B-Instruct |
20 GB |
General analysis |
Yes |
Documentation Specialists
| Model |
VRAM |
Best For |
Ollama Command |
| Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct |
48 GB |
Technical docs, API refs |
ollama pull qwen2.5:72b-instruct |
| Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct |
42 GB |
Clear, natural writing |
ollama pull llama3.3:70b |
| Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct |
22 GB |
Efficient docs |
ollama pull qwen2.5:32b-instruct |
| Mistral-Small-24B |
16 GB |
Quick docs |
ollama pull mistral-small |
| Mistral-Nemo-12B |
8 GB |
Comments, docstrings |
ollama pull mistral-nemo |
Model Families
DeepSeek (Recommended)
- DeepSeek-V3: Best overall, MoE architecture (685B/37B active)
- DeepSeek-R1: Best reasoning, chain-of-thought
- DeepSeek-Coder-V2: Excellent coding, MoE (236B/21B active)
- Distill variants: R1 distilled to 70B/32B/14B/8B/7B/1.5B
Qwen (Alibaba)
- Qwen2.5-Coder: State-of-the-art coding (32B/14B/7B)
- Qwen2.5-Instruct: General purpose (72B/32B/14B/7B)
- Huge context: 131K tokens standard
Llama (Meta)
- Llama-3.3-70B: Strong all-around
- Llama-3.2: Vision support (11B/3B)
- CodeLlama: Specialized for code (70B/34B/7B)
Mistral
- Mistral-Small-24B: New efficient model
- Mistral-Nemo-12B: Good documentation
- Mixtral-8x22B: MoE, diverse expertise
Google
- Gemma-2-27B: Good balance
- Gemma-2-9B: Efficient small model
Microsoft
- Phi-4: Punches above weight, 14B params
Quantization Guide
Quantization Levels
| Level |
Quality Loss |
VRAM Savings |
Recommended Use |
| FP16 |
0% |
Baseline |
Maximum quality |
| Q8_0 |
~1% |
50% |
Best quantized quality |
| Q6_K |
~2% |
60% |
Good balance |
| Q5_K_M |
~3% |
65% |
Recommended |
| Q4_K_M |
~5% |
70% |
VRAM constrained |
| Q3_K_M |
~10% |
75% |
Extreme constraint |
Recommended Quantizations
| Model |
Full VRAM |
Q4_K_M VRAM |
Recommended |
| DeepSeek-V3 |
140 GB |
48 GB |
Q4_K_M |
| Qwen2.5-72B |
145 GB |
48 GB |
Q4_K_M |
| DeepSeek-R1-70B |
140 GB |
42 GB |
Q4_K_M |
| Qwen2.5-Coder-32B |
65 GB |
22 GB |
Q5_K_M |
| Llama-3.3-70B |
140 GB |
42 GB |
Q4_K_M |
Hardware Recommendations
Minimal Setup (8 GB VRAM)
- GPU: RTX 3060 12GB, RTX 4060 8GB
- Models: 7B-14B models
- Tasks: Basic coding, quick tasks
Standard Setup (24 GB VRAM)
- GPU: RTX 3090, RTX 4090
- Models: 32B models, 70B Q4 quantized
- Tasks: Full coding, analysis, docs
Professional Setup (48+ GB VRAM)
- GPU: A6000, 2x RTX 4090
- Models: DeepSeek-V3, 70B+ full
- Tasks: Complex reasoning, deep analysis
Enterprise Setup (Multi-GPU)
- GPU: 4x A100, 8x H100
- Models: DeepSeek-R1 full, 200B+
- Tasks: Frontier-level capabilities
Supported Services
| Service |
Port |
API Style |
Install |
| Ollama |
11434 |
Native |
brew install ollama |
| LM Studio |
1234 |
OpenAI |
Download from lmstudio.ai |
| Jan |
1337 |
OpenAI |
Download from jan.ai |
| vLLM |
8000 |
OpenAI |
pip install vllm |
| llama.cpp |
8080 |
OpenAI |
Build from source |
| LocalAI |
8080 |
OpenAI |
Docker or binary |
| Kobold.cpp |
5001 |
Custom |
Build from source |
| GPT4All |
4891 |
OpenAI |
Download from gpt4all.io |
| OpenWebUI |
3000 |
Custom |
Docker |
Service-Specific Notes
Ollama (Recommended)
# Install
curl -fsSL https://ollama.ai/install.sh | sh
# Pull top models
ollama pull deepseek-v3
ollama pull qwen2.5-coder:32b
ollama pull deepseek-r1:32b
ollama pull phi4
# Start server
ollama serve
vLLM (Production)
# Install
pip install vllm
# Run server
python -m vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server \
--model deepseek-ai/deepseek-v3 \
--tensor-parallel-size 2
LM Studio
- Download from https://lmstudio.ai
- GUI for model management
- Easy quantization selection
- Built-in server
Quick Selection Guide
"I have 8GB VRAM, what should I use for coding?"
- Qwen2.5-Coder-7B or DeepSeek-Coder-6.7B
"I have 24GB VRAM, best overall model?"
- Qwen2.5-Coder-32B for coding
- DeepSeek-R1-Distill-32B for reasoning
"I have 48GB VRAM, maximum performance?"
- DeepSeek-V3 (Q4_K_M quantization)
"I need reasoning/chain-of-thought?"
- DeepSeek-R1 or any DeepSeek-R1-Distill variant
"I need fast inference for IDE completions?"
- Phi-4 or Qwen2.5-Coder-7B
"I'm in an air-gapped environment?"
- Pre-download models with checksums
- Use Ollama or llama.cpp (no cloud dependencies)
- Enable Serena LSP for code intelligence