---
title: "Open Source Models : What Can We Determine from Download Patterns?"
description: "Analyze key trends in open source AI models: 92% use Apache/MIT licenses, with Meta capturing 30% of downloads. Data-driven insights from HuggingFace's top 300 models."
categories: ["AI","data analysis","engineering"]
keywords: ["open source models","HuggingFace","Apache license","MIT license","Meta AI","speech recognition models","data analysis","AI trends","machine learning models"]
ai_summary: "Explore trends in open source AI models, focusing on download patterns and license preferences among top creators."
date: 2024-01-15
lastmod: 2026-07-23
canonical_url: https://www.tomtunguz.com/open-source-models/
author: "Tomasz Tunguz"
---

Open source models have become a critical part of the AI landscape. 

I was curious about the trends in the open source ecosystem, so I analyzed HuggingFace data on the top 300 open source models, both by overall usage & also the top of the trending list. 

Open source models are governed by open source licenses. Similar to regular open source software, Apache & MIT dominate the licenses by model count. 76% of the top models choose one of these licenses. Apache is nearly twice as popular as MIT.

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/dur2cdtalkvi6uyoz9ho.png)

But the concentration is greater when viewing the share by downloads. Models with Apache or MIT licenses represent 92% of downloaded models last month.

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/zlz4vre5lmqsvfoallz0.png)

Stability, Facebook, & Microsoft top the creator list of open source models by count. So does TheBloke, an engineer who quantizes (or compresses) open source models.
![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/pqkh8krwnyim7lvvrwkv.png)

But the download data shows very different patterns.

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/e1kwcogik79v6yexpvxv.png)

Meta's models recorded 30% of downloads, driven by its word2vec model for speech recognition. Then OpenAI & Google not far behind.
![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/a4py7ua2ya22yynfbnup.png)

The most popular models by downloads are models for training other models, called Fill-Mask models. Then speech recognition. Third is text classification (LLMs are very good at this.) Text generation is fifth.

![image](https://res.cloudinary.com/dzawgnnlr/image/upload/idiiaubccfi9bmuoc9qm.png)

How about popularity? HuggingFace likes of a model are completely uncorrelated to downloads with an R^2 of 0.06.

Overall, we can conclude more lax licenses dominate the top models. Meta, Google, Microsoft, Stability, & OpenAI are important players within the open source ecosystem. 

Speech is the most popular end-user application of open source models by downloads in the last month, superseded by testing - which makes sense given how many companies are building or testing LLMs.

Given all the innovation in the space, in a quarter or two, this data might be very different. Who do you think will top the charts at the end of 2024?