Flint: a free coding model that runs on your laptop, offline
Redacción IvokaOct 23, 6:00 AM 3 min
Startup Recursive opened Flint under an Apache 2.0 license. It needs a computer with 48 GB of memory; it is for people who code or build automations.
Recursive, a London-incorporated AI lab led by Richard Socher, released Flint, its first model, on October 21. It is an open-weight coding model under an Apache 2.0 license, meaning companies can download, modify and use it commercially without asking anyone.
What it does
It is built for coding agents: reading a codebase, fixing bugs, implementing features and writing tests. It is not a general-purpose chatbot.
What you need to run it
- An Apple Silicon Mac with 48 GB of memory (such as M4 Pro, M5 Pro or M5 Max) or a 48 GB NVIDIA GPU.
- The 4-bit compressed version takes about 23 GB.
- Recursive says it runs offline, and reports 131 tokens per second on an M4 Pro MacBook.
Cost
The weights are a free download from Hugging Face. On OpenRouter, according to a developer write-up, it launched at a price of zero.
Watch the numbers
The results (74.2% on SWE-bench Verified and 54.9% on Terminal-Bench 2.1) are the company's own. I-scoop notes that, on those numbers, it is the best small model of this kind for agentic coding, but a larger dense Qwen model still beats it.
What it means for you: if you or someone on your team codes, it is an option to work without paying per use and without sending your code off your machine. If you don't code, there's nothing you need to do.
