---
title: "Open Weights vs. Proprietary AI: The Gap Stays at 42 Points"
date: 2026-10-14
url: https://modevc.com/charts/open-weights-vs-proprietary-arena-gap/
keywords: ["open source vs closed ai", "open weights arena leaderboard", "deepseek vs proprietary llm"]
publisher: Mode VC
---

# Open Weights vs. Proprietary AI: The Gap Stays at 42 Points

The performance gap between open and closed models has stabilized between 30 and 45 Arena points. For 80% of enterprise tasks, open-weight economics outweigh the marginal frontier lead.

## Chart: Open weights briefly beat every proprietary model in early 2025 (deepseek-r1); today the best open model trails by 42 points.

Best proprietary rating minus best openly licensed rating, per snapshot, Arena points · below 0 = open model leads · 2024 – Oct 2026.

| Series | Date | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-01-09 | 67 | mixtral-8x7b-instruct-v0.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-01-18 | 66 | mixtral-8x7b-instruct-v0.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-01-25 | 66 | mixtral-8x7b-instruct-v0.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-02-02 | 135 | mixtral-8x7b-instruct-v0.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-02-15 | 107 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-03-05 | 104 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-03-07 | 105 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-03-13 | 104 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-03-26 | 105 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-03-27 | 105 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-03 | 105 | qwen1.5-72b-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-09 | 62 | command-r-plus |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-10 | 61 | command-r-plus |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-11 | 68 | command-r-plus |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-13 | 67 | command-r-plus |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-18 | 66 | command-r-plus |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-19 | 60 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-22 | 49 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-04-26 | 50 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-01 | 49 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-08 | 50 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-15 | 86 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-16 | 85 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-19 | 84 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-20 | 84 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-05-27 | 80 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-02 | 80 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-06 | 80 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-11 | 80 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-17 | 75 | nemotron-4-340b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-21 | 77 | nemotron-4-340b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-23 | 79 | nemotron-4-340b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-26 | 80 | llama-3-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-06-29 | 73 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-06 | 70 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-08 | 71 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-16 | 71 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-22 | 70 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-25 | 69 | gemma-2-27b-it |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-30 | 24 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-07-31 | 24 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-01 | 24 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-05 | 23 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-06 | 23 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-13 | 22 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-22 | 51 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-23 | 51 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-27 | 50 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-08-28 | 50 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-09-04 | 49 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-09-15 | 28 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct-fp8 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-09-17 | 89 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct-fp8 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-09-27 | 73 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct-bf16 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-10-07 | 68 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct-bf16 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-10-15 | 68 | llama-3.1-405b-instruct-fp8 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-10-23 | 70 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-10-28 | 64 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-04 | 63 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-12 | 64 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-13 | 64 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-20 | 65 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-21 | 65 | llama-3.1-nemotron-70b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-11-22 | 60 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-01 | 57 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-05 | 57 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-10 | 56 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-15 | 57 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-18 | 58 | athene-v2-chat |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-22 | 57 | deepseek-v2.5-1210 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2024-12-30 | 44 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-05 | 33 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-15 | 31 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-19 | 32 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-21 | 32 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-22 | 32 | deepseek-v3 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-24 | -5 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-01-28 | -6 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-03 | -9 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-05 | -5 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-06 | -5 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-09 | -6 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-11 | -6 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-14 | -7 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-17 | -6 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-21 | -4 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-02-27 | -4 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-03 | 49 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-11 | 46 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-15 | 46 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-17 | 46 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-20 | 44 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-25 | 44 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-26 | 48 | deepseek-r1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-03-30 | 36 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-04-05 | 40 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-04-08 | 40 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-04-09 | 36 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-04-16 | 35 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-04-23 | 45 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-05 | 39 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-06 | 39 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-11 | 40 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-19 | 41 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-20 | 41 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-05-22 | 41 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-01 | 45 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-03 | 44 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-05 | 43 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-11 | 43 | deepseek-v3-0324 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-17 | 6 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-18 | 6 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-06-24 | 54 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-01 | 49 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-07 | 52 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-15 | 50 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-17 | 50 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-25 | 48 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-07-28 | 48 | deepseek-r1-0528 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-01 | 39 | qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-04 | 36 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-07 | 38 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-14 | 36 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-18 | 37 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-21 | 37 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-27 | 37 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-08-28 | 37 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-09-08 | 37 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-09-17 | 41 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-09-18 | 41 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-09-30 | 38 | qwen3-vl-235b-a22b-instruct |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-10-01 | 39 | glm-4.5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-10-03 | 23 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-10-07 | 27 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-10-16 | 26 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-10-17 | 26 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-05 | 21 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-06 | 20 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-09 | 21 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-16 | 51 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-17 | 53 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-18 | 49 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-20 | 48 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-11-26 | 46 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-01 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-04 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-05 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-08 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-11 | 46 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-15 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-16 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-18 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-19 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-21 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-23 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2025-12-30 | 45 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-01-09 | 44 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-01-27 | 42 | glm-4.6 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-01-29 | 35 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-06 | 57 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-09 | 60 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-10 | 41 | glm-5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-11 | 59 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-16 | 59 | glm-5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-17 | 58 | glm-5 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-19 | 55 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-20 | 54 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-21 | 55 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-22 | 55 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-24 | 54 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-25 | 54 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-02-26 | 50 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-03 | 54 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-04 | 55 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-05 | 53 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-06 | 54 | qwen3.5-397b-a17b |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-11 | 53 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-16 | 50 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-18 | 49 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-19 | 49 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-20 | 50 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-26 | 51 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-03-31 | 51 | kimi-k2.5-thinking |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-02 | 25 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-07 | 25 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-09 | 26 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-10 | 26 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-14 | 28 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-17 | 28 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-20 | 26 | gpt-5.4-high |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-22 | 35 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-23 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-27 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-28 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-29 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-04-30 | 33 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-01 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-06 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-07 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-12 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-14 | 30 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-18 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-19 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-05-27 | 30 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-03 | 30 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-04 | 30 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-05 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-10 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-16 | 31 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-06-25 | 32 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-02 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-10 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-12 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-14 | 34 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-16 | 35 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-20 | 36 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-21 | 37 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-26 | 33 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-27 | 38 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-07-30 | 38 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-02 | 34 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-03 | 42 | glm-5.1 |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-06 | 32 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-10 | 32 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-11 | 32 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-12 | 31 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-19 | 28 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-21 | 27 | glm-5.3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-08-27 | 29 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-01 | 29 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-02 | 38 | kimi-k3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-11 | 33 | glm-5.3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-13 | 32 | glm-5.3-max |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-25 | 27 | mimo-v2.6-pro |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-09-30 | 43 | mimo-v2.6-pro |
| Proprietary Lead | 2026-10-02 | 42 | mimo-v2.6-pro |

Note: "Open" means any non-proprietary licence in the dataset, including non-commercial ones; it is not the OSI definition. "Open" indicates any non-proprietary license in the dataset, including non-commercial research weights.

## The signal

- **Arena:** On 3 Feb 2025, DeepSeek-R1 achieved #1 on Chatbot Arena, beating every proprietary model by 9 points.
- **Arena:** As of October 2026, the gap between proprietary flagships and top open weights (Qwen3.8, GLM-5.3, MiMo) has settled at 42 points.

## The Mode read

The open-weight versus proprietary debate reached its historic inflection in early 2025, when **DeepSeek-R1** briefly overtook every proprietary frontier model, scoring **9 points higher** than the best closed API on Chatbot Arena. That moment disproved the assumption that proprietary labs had an unbridgeable scaling lead.

Since then, frontier labs have reclaimed a modest lead. Across 2026, proprietary flagships have maintained a steady gap of **42 points** over open weights. On an Elo scale, a 42-point gap translates to a 56% to 44% win rate on blind human preference—statistically noticeable, but functionally indistinguishable across routine business workflows like summarization, extraction, and first-tier customer support.

For venture founders and CTOs, a 42-point gap is not a barrier; it is an economic green light. Running open-weight models self-hosted or via zero-margin inference providers cuts token costs by 80% to 95%. When baseline competence is ubiquitous and inexpensive, product margins expand for applications that own proprietary distribution channels.

> A 42-point gap does not justify a 10× price premium for 80% of workflows.

**What we would back:** Sovereign enterprise infrastructure that runs open weights locally, bypassing centralized API rent.

## Sources

- [Arena leaderboard dataset (lmarena-ai, CC BY 4.0)](https://huggingface.co/datasets/lmarena-ai/leaderboard-dataset)