Phi-4
Good at math, short memory. Keep your chats short and sweet.
Short answer (as of Oct 14, 2026): Phi-4 mini is a local AI model from Microsoft. Truly open? Yes, OSI-approved license. Business use: yes. Our estimate says it needs about 5 GB of RAM. Trust score 84 of 100.
As of Oct 14, 2026: license MIT License; business use yes; sign-up not needed; about 5 GB RAM (estimate); trust score 84/100. Sources.
Small model with a long memory window.
In non-nerd speak
Who makes it: Microsoft. The files come from the maker's own Hugging Face account.
License: MIT License. A short, standard open source license. You can do almost anything with it. Keep the copyright notice.
Business use: Yes. Business use is allowed. Keep the copyright notice when you share it.
Training data: We have not found a full public data release. Not yet checked in depth.
Will it run on my computer?
Pick a computer with at least 8 GB of memory. On a Mac, that is the unified memory. On a PC, a graphics card with that much VRAM is fastest. A PC with only normal RAM will also work, just slower.
How to run it in LM Studio
- Get LM Studio from lmstudio.ai and open it.
- Open the Discover tab. Search for
lmstudio-community/Phi-4-mini-instruct-GGUF. - Pick a file that ends in
Q4_K_M. It is the best mix of size and quality for most people. - Click Download. When it is done, open a new chat and load the model.
The files are GGUF builds that LM Studio can load. We checked that this repo exists on Oct 14, 2026. Full LM Studio guide.
How to use it with Hermes
Does it fit? Yes. Its memory window is big enough for Hermes.
- Load the model in LM Studio. Set the context length to at least 64000.
- In LM Studio, open the Developer tab and start the server.
- In a terminal, run
hermes model. Choose LM Studio and press Enter to keephttp://localhost:1234/v1. - Pick this model from the list. Then run
hermesto start.
Common questions
Is Phi-4 mini truly open source?
Yes, OSI-approved license. A short, standard open source license. You can do almost anything with it. Keep the copyright notice.
Can I use Phi-4 mini for my business?
Yes. Business use is allowed. Keep the copyright notice when you share it.
Do I need to sign up to download Phi-4 mini?
No. Download without an account.
How much memory does Phi-4 mini need?
Our estimate is about 5 GB of RAM for a 4-bit file of about 2.3 GB. This is a rough guide, not a test.
Sources we checked
| Fact | What we found | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Microsoft | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| License | MIT License | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| License plain | A short, standard open source license. You can do almost anything with it. Keep the copyright notice. | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Truly open | Yes, OSI-approved license | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Business use | Yes. Business use is allowed. Keep the copyright notice when you share it. | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Signup needed | No. Download without an account. | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Parameters | 3.8 billion | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Open training data | Not yet checked | We have not found a full public training data release. Not yet checked in depth. |
| Context window | 128K tokens | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| First posted | 2025-02-19 | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Gguf files | lmstudio-community/Phi-4-mini-instruct-GGUF | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
| Hermes ok | Yes | Verified Oct 14, 2026 |
If the maker's page and this page disagree, trust the maker. Tell us what we got wrong.
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