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Can we say that each year an open-source alternative replaces the previous year's closed-source SOTA?

Reddit r/LocalLLaMA / 3/16/2026

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Key Points

  • The post argues that open-source LLMs are increasingly replacing the previous year's closed-source SOTA, citing GLM5 and Kimi K2.5 as examples that could supersede Anthropic's Sonnet 3.5 from a year ago.
  • The author envisions a trend where LLMs upgrade and depreciate like consumer electronics, rather than remaining a costly premium.
  • The piece suggests that if this trend continues, future SOTA models like Opus 4.6 or GPT-5.4 could be hosted at home.
  • The author expresses excitement and gratitude for the open-source community and notes a personal desire to run modern models locally once hardware becomes affordable.

I strongly feel this trend towards open-source models. For example, GLM5 or Kimi K2.5 can absolutely replace Anthropic SOTA Sonnet 3.5 from a year ago.

I'm excited about this trend, which shows that LLMs will upgrade and depreciate like electronic products in the future, rather than remaining at an expensive premium indefinitely.

For example, if this trend continues, perhaps next year we'll be able to host Opus 4.6 or GPT 5.4 at home.

I've been following this community, but I haven't had enough hardware to run any meaningful LLMs or do any meaningful work. I look forward to the day when I can use models that are currently comparable to Opus 24/7 at home. If this trend continues, I think in a few years I can use my own SOTA models as easily as swapping out a cheap but outdated GPU. I'm very grateful for the contributions of the open-source community.

submitted by /u/Chair-Short
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