# Olmo by Ai2 Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/olmo/ 41 people recommended Olmo by Ai2 in Hacker News comments, 4 had mixed feelings and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 11 of 12 months, in 30 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Ai2's fully open language model releases weights, training data, code and checkpoints, so people recommend it as the most transparent option, though it trails top closed models. Summary written by Claude from 51 comments. It was written before the November 2026 recount, and 49 of those comments still count. ## Why people recommend it - Fully open data, code, weights (13 comments in the sample): "AI2 complete transparency including training data, code, intermediate checkpoints, and detailed logs for reproducibility and scientific rigor" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217896)) "I really appreciate that you all are releasing true open source models complete with data, training code and weights." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46007275)) "very compelling capabilities where the dataset, training process, and final weights are all open" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48953094)) - Competitive with open-weight models (3 comments in the sample): "We are competitive with open weights models in general, just a couple points behind best Qwen." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46006028)) "this one is the closest to being competitive with closed models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46004177)) "fully open source models that are comparable to o1-mini (OLMo" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48646219)) - Runs well on own hardware (3 comments in the sample): "there is a broad practical application served here for developers who need to figure out a project on their own hardware" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46006040)) "This type of model is as open as is physically possible, and represents a real improvement in user agency" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46008784)) "That 7B model also worked well in my experiments on a laptop." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49266103)) - Checks corporate control of AI (3 comments in the sample): "a huge achievement for a truly open source model, and a necessary check and balance on corporate control of AI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45997763)) "Allen AI do not get enough love. They are doing GenAI how it should have always been done." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48624492)) "Allen AI is fighting the good fight with their Olmo models" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48955140)) ## What people warn about - Behind top closed models (3 comments in the sample): "Olmo 3 from AllenAI, and K2 Think V2 from Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence are both fully open…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48523417)) "It’s not super helpful, especially as a sovereign government initiative to build an also-ran" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49223259)) "It is not on the “frontier” in any meaningful way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48486800)) - Unstable over longer conversations (2 comments in the sample): "mine would perform very poorly when the conversation got past 1 turn" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46010204)) "Worked for the first message but got progressively more unstable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46010529)) - Training data sourcing questioned (2 comments in the sample): "Not Open, just willing to state what they fed into the training." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49567370)) "This olmo uses random data of totally infringing license database such a StackEdu" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48839929)) - Factual errors in answers (2 comments in the sample): "it admitted that it left out the fourth stomach because it was small, and claimed that the rumination wasn't "true" in some sense" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46005308)) "I'm wondering why it thinks that it was developed by OpenAI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46004335)) ## Other open-weight language models people recommend - [Qwen 3.8 27B](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qwen-3-8-27b/): 804 recommend, 242 mixed, 301 criticize - [Z.ai GLM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/glm-5-2/): 750 recommend, 181 mixed, 278 criticize - [Kimi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kimi-k3/): 652 recommend, 182 mixed, 275 criticize - [Gemma 4](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gemma-4/): 524 recommend, 120 mixed, 166 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Olmo by Ai2", https://hackerapproved.com/p/olmo/ (41 recommend, 4 mixed, 9 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.