Model Choices

Step 3 of the setup script offers three options. All are free and open-weight. These are the best overall models targeted for RAM <32 GB available as of July 2026 with relatively large user validation and maturity.

	Model	Download	Notes
1	Gemma 4 E4B	~4.6 GB	The small, fast one. Works on modest machines. A reasonable first choice if you're unsure.
2	Gemma 4 26B-A4B (QAT)	~15 GB	Much more capable, but only activates a small slice of itself per word, so it stays fast. Wants ~24 GB of RAM.
3	Qwen3.5 35B-A3B	~20 GB	Same idea, different family. Strong at code. Wants ~32 GB of RAM.

If you pick wrong, nothing is lost. Re-run the script and choose a different one; both models stay cached on disk and the script will simply point pi at whichever you chose most recently.

Exploring other models

If you wish to use a more powerful model (if you have more RAM) or just want to explore, there are literally 1000s of options available. The best place to find them is huggingface.co.