{"id":5501,"date":"2026-09-27T12:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T03:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/format-mlx-en\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T12:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T03:45:08","slug":"format-mlx-en","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/format-mlx-en\/","title":{"rendered":"MLX Model Format Explained: Supported Engines and Models"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What Is MLX?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>MLX<\/strong> is a machine-learning framework for Apple Silicon (M-series chips), developed by Apple&#8217;s machine learning research team. Its companion package <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ml-explore\/mlx-lm\">mlx-lm<\/a> runs LLMs, and Hugging Face hosts many <strong>models converted and quantized for MLX<\/strong> (for example in the <code>mlx-community<\/code> organization). When we say &#8220;MLX format&#8221;, we mean weights prepared to be loaded by MLX.<\/p>\n<h2>Why It Matters<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>It uses the Mac&#8217;s unified memory directly.<\/strong> CPU and GPU share one pool of memory on Apple Silicon, so a Mac with plenty of memory can run models too large for a consumer GPU.<\/li>\n<li><strong>It is optimized for Apple Silicon.<\/strong> On the same Mac it can generate faster than GGUF (llama.cpp) in some cases; which one wins depends on the model and quantization.<\/li>\n<li><strong>4-bit, 8-bit and other quantized builds are common.<\/strong> A repository name ending in <code>-4bit<\/code> or <code>-8bit<\/code> tells you the level.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Tips for Running It Locally<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mac (Apple Silicon) only.<\/strong> It does not run on NVIDIA GPUs under Windows or Linux; choose GGUF or AWQ there.<\/li>\n<li><strong>LM Studio loads MLX models directly.<\/strong> From the command line, <code>pip install mlx-lm<\/code> and use <code>mlx_lm.generate<\/code> or <code>mlx_lm.server<\/code>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not all memory is available to the GPU.<\/strong> macOS caps how much memory the GPU can use, so leave headroom rather than picking a model that barely fits your installed memory.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The files use the <code>.safetensors<\/code> extension.<\/strong> Tell MLX builds apart by the repository name or the <code>mlx<\/code> tag.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Sources: <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ml-explore\/mlx\">the ml-explore\/mlx README<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/ml-explore\/mlx-lm\">the ml-explore\/mlx-lm README<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/mlx-community\">the mlx-community organization on Hugging Face<\/a> (all as of 2026-09-27).<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Our Coverage and Data<\/h2>\n<p>Local Model Watch has published 6 article(s) on models available in MLX: 2 where the repository itself is in MLX, and 4 where we found a MLX build of the model. The lists below only include builds we have checked (the publisher&#8217;s organization and well-known quantizers); a model missing here may still have a MLX build elsewhere. Part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/formats-en\/\">model format index<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Main Engines That Load This Format<\/h2>\n<div class=\"lmw-table-scroll\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"overflow-x:auto;-webkit-overflow-scrolling:touch;max-width:100%;\">\n<table style=\"width:max-content;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Engine<\/th>\n<th>Overview<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/engine-exo-en\/\">exo<\/a><\/td>\n<td>Framework that clusters everyday devices (Macs, PCs, phones) to run a single model across them.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Models Available in MLX<\/h2>\n<div class=\"lmw-table-scroll\" tabindex=\"0\" style=\"overflow-x:auto;-webkit-overflow-scrolling:touch;max-width:100%;\">\n<p class=\"lmw-table-hint\" style=\"margin:0 0 4px;font-size:0.85em;opacity:0.7;\">\u2192 Scroll horizontally to see all columns<\/p>\n<table style=\"width:max-content;min-width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Published<\/th>\n<th>Model<\/th>\n<th>Where to get it<\/th>\n<th>Quantizations<\/th>\n<th>Smallest VRAM tier<\/th>\n<th>Article<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-26<\/td>\n<td>Qwen\/Qwen3.8-27B<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/lmstudio-community\/Qwen3.8-27B-MLX-4bit\">lmstudio-community\/Qwen3.8-27B-MLX-4bit<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/lmstudio-community\/Qwen3.8-27B-MLX-8bit\">lmstudio-community\/Qwen3.8-27B-MLX-8bit<\/a><\/td>\n<td>MLX 4bit, MLX 8bit<\/td>\n<td>24GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/26\/qwen3-8-27b-overview-specs-performance\/\">Qwen3.8-27B Multimodal Vision-Language Model: 8GB+ VRAM, GGUF Builds<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-18<\/td>\n<td>prism-ml\/Ternary-Bonsai-2-27B-gguf<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/prism-ml\/Ternary-Bonsai-2-27B-mlx-2bit\">prism-ml\/Ternary-Bonsai-2-27B-mlx-2bit<\/a><\/td>\n<td>MLX 2bit<\/td>\n<td>12GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/18\/ternary-bonsai-2-27b-gguf\/\">Ternary-Bonsai-2-27B-gguf Text Generation Model: 8GB+ VRAM<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-17<\/td>\n<td>harshatheg\/Qwen-2.5-1B-RLCD<\/td>\n<td>This repository<\/td>\n<td>\u2014<\/td>\n<td>4GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/17\/qwen-25-1b-rlcd-mlx-constrained-decoding\/\">Qwen-2.5-1B-RLCD Text Generation Model: 4GB+ VRAM<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-11<\/td>\n<td>Edge0\/Edge0-35B-A3B-preview<\/td>\n<td>This repository<\/td>\n<td>\u2014<\/td>\n<td>24GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/11\/edge0-35b-a3b-preview-sparse-moe\/\">Edge0-35B-A3B-preview 35B MoE Model for Phone-Class Memory: 24GB+ VRAM<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-09<\/td>\n<td>nex-agi\/Nex-N2.5-mini<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/mlx-community\/Nex-N2.5-mini-OptiQ-4bit\">mlx-community\/Nex-N2.5-mini-OptiQ-4bit<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/mlx-community\/Nex-N2.5-mini-oQ4\">mlx-community\/Nex-N2.5-mini-oQ4<\/a><\/td>\n<td>MLX 4bit<\/td>\n<td>24GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/09\/nex-n25-mini-released\/\">Nex-N2.5-mini Agent Model for Long-Horizon Tasks: 16GB+ VRAM<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2026-09-08<\/td>\n<td>openbmb\/MiniCPM5-2B<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/openbmb\/MiniCPM5-2B-MLX\">openbmb\/MiniCPM5-2B-MLX<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/huggingface.co\/mlx-community\/MiniCPM5-2B-8bit\">mlx-community\/MiniCPM5-2B-8bit<\/a><\/td>\n<td>MLX, MLX 8bit<\/td>\n<td>4GB<\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/2026\/09\/08\/minicpm5-2b-released\/\">MiniCPM5-2B On-Device Model Strong in Code and Math: 4GB+ VRAM<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>&#8220;Smallest VRAM tier&#8221; is the smallest tier in the requirements table of each article (for other builds, of those builds; for image, video and audio models, always the article&#8217;s own table, which counts every component). Leave headroom for context length.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Last updated 2026-09-26 (JST). The explanation at the top of this page was written with the help of AI from the primary sources it cites. The tables under &#8220;Our Coverage and Data&#8221; are assembled by code from our article log.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Is MLX? MLX is a machine-learning framework for Apple Silicon (M-series chips), developed by Apple&#8217;s machine learning research team. Its companion package mlx-lm runs LLMs, and Hugging Face hosts many models converted and quantized for MLX (for example in the mlx-community organization). When we say &#8220;MLX format&#8221;, we mean weights prepared to be loaded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5501","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":5501,"ja":5500},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/localmodelwatch.tsuchitsuchi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}