AI Models & LLM News: Releases, Benchmarks, Comparisons

New models, benchmarks and our tests

Comic-style man holding a giant hourglass marked JUL 21 draining glowing tokens, symbolizing a free AI model promo ending.

chinese models own openrouter's top 5. two are free – one promo ends today

Addy Crezee 21 Jul 2026 1 min read

Three retro CRT monitors labeled kimi k3 and glm 5.2 showing a pixel game, bright fish tank, and a dark near-empty tank.

kimi k3 vs glm 5.2

Nick Trenkler 21 Jul 2026 2 min read

xiaomi's mimo-v2.5 owns the ultra-long-context tier on openrouter – 31.6% of all 1m–10m token requests, ~4x the next model

Nick Trenkler 20 Jul 2026 1 min read

Woman in dark suit turns a glowing green safe dial in a graffiti-lit basement, evoking cracking open AI model benchmarks.

inkling vs nemotron 3 ultra vs deepseek v4 pro vs glm 5.2

Nick Trenkler 20 Jul 2026 3 min read

Illustrated woman with glowing rod facing a neon synthwave pinball table standing vertically, legs detached

kimi k3 vs gpt 5.6 sol vs fable 5 vs grok 4.5

Nick Trenkler 17 Jul 2026 4 min read

Illustrated turbine engine emitting energy spirals above four old monitors showing error and retry screens

hy3 vs mimo-v2.5 vs deepseek v4 flash vs minimax m3

Addy Crezee 15 Jul 2026 2 min read

Illustrated man holding labeled USB drives — Sol, Luna, Terra, 5.5 — beside a laptop with four panels, Opus 4.8 on chair

gpt 5.6 sol vs gpt 5.6 terra vs gpt 5.6 luna vs gpt 5.5

Nick Trenkler 14 Jul 2026 2 min read

Illustration of a server in uniform serving silver cloches labeled Free and $0.07 to a crowd of developers

tencent opensourced hy3 a week ago. it already has more tokens routed than any other model on openrouter

Addy Crezee 13 Jul 2026 1 min read

Illustrated operator at a multi-monitor console with green subagent network screens and graffiti-tagged walls

meta muse spark 1.1 vs gpt 5.6 sol vs fable 5 vs grok 4.5

Nick Trenkler 11 Jul 2026 3 min read

Man with OpenAI patch examines miniature chained London landmarks through magnifying glass, monitors glowing behind him

gpt 5.6 sol pro vs claude fable 5 vs grok 4.5 vs glm 5.2

Nick Trenkler 10 Jul 2026 2 min read

xAI worker in jumpsuit between neon bedroom and kitchen blueprints, messy garage with dead code newspapers

grok 4.5 vs fable 5 vs gpt 5.5 vs glm 5.2

Addy Crezee 9 Jul 2026 2 min read

Comic sprinters in colored suits race while a crouching mechanic in "hy3" coveralls holds a cable — an ai coding-model race.

hy3 vs fable 5 vs opus 4.8 vs sonnet 5

Addy Crezee 7 Jul 2026 2 min read

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