Hacker ApprovedDepartments

Ember-1

Shares rank 44 of 72 language models by recommenders

Recommended for using far fewer tokens per task, which can cut cost in long conversations. Critics report hallucinations and higher pricing than its base model.

Recommended for using far fewer tokens per task, which can cut cost in long conversations. Critics report hallucinations and higher pricing than its base model.

15 people gave an opinion

recommend it
11
criticize it
4
approval share
73%
Each figure is one person. RecommendsCriticizes

Recommended in 1 of 13 months

  1. November 2025: not recommended
  2. December 2025: not recommended
  3. January 2026: not recommended
  4. February 2026: not recommended
  5. March 2026: not recommended
  6. April 2026: not recommended
  7. May 2026: not recommended
  8. June 2026: not recommended
  9. July 2026: not recommended
  10. August 2026: not recommended
  11. September 2026: recommended
  12. October 2026: not recommended
  13. November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)

Why it doesn’t carry the badge

  • 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
  • 2.8 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
  • Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.

The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works

What people say about it

The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.

Why people recommend it

Each mark is one comment

What people warn about

Each mark is one comment

  • Higher cost per token than base

    “Half the tokens, but triple the cost on Open Router? So I pay more?”

    Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

    “But the pricing is double the pricing of K3.”

    Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”
  • Hallucinates and claims false completion

    “Their Ember-1 model (Kimi K3 tuned to think less) hallucinates to high hell, I have no trust of it”

    Comment from 19 Oct 2026 in “MiniMax M3.1 Flash”

    “It hallucinated and claimed task completion almost every session.”

    Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “Gemma-4-26B-A4B with 39-69% less thinking at same accuracy”
  • Poor past experience with Ember-2

    “Given what an experience i had with Ember-2”

    Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

    “Not what I signed up for though.”

    Comment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

Other language models people recommend

The four most recommended other language models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.

Ember-1 compared with 4 alternatives
ProductRecommendCriticizeApprovalMonthsOwnedBadge
Claude Opus3,3312,74655%134 mo156 owners—
OpenAI GPT1,20598755%136 mo47 owners—
Claude Sonnet85458659%136 mo46 owners—
DeepSeek V4 Flash82822379%81 mo24 ownersApproved
Ember-1This page11473%1——
See all 72 language models, ranked

What people said

All 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.

“It hallucinated and claimed task completion almost every session.”

CriticizesComment from 23 Oct 2026 in “Gemma-4-26B-A4B with 39-69% less thinking at same accuracy”

“Their Ember-1 model (Kimi K3 tuned to think less) hallucinates to high hell, I have no trust of it”

CriticizesComment from 19 Oct 2026 in “MiniMax M3.1 Flash”

“the private, local, homegrown specialized English-to-bash translator”

RecommendsComment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“fine-tune of Kimi3 with way less thinking”

RecommendsComment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Sonnet 5.5”

“Half the tokens can also mean quicker task completion”

RecommendsComment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“Half the tokens, but triple the cost on Open Router? So I pay more?”

MixedComment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“For long conversations, you end up paying much less.”

RecommendsComment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“Not what I signed up for though.”

CriticizesComment from 28 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“It's same price for lower latency.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“Because you care about how many tokens are used per task.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“But the pricing is double the pricing of K3.”

CriticizesComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“This is undoubtedly great.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“Given what an experience i had with Ember-2”

CriticizesComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“jev can be great for running periodic evals especially those that run daily.”

MixedComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“set a new Pareto frontier for Bedside Bench across both open and closed models”

RecommendsComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

“Well done, and great iteration.”

RecommendsComment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Ember-1”

Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.