Bonsai
Bonsai is PrismML’s independently published low-bit language-model family for local and on-device deployment. The original release contains 8B, 4B, and 1.7B models using binary weights across embeddings, attention, feed-forward layers, and the language head. The representative 8.19B checkpoint uses a Qwen3-8B-derived dense Transformer, supports 65,536 tokens, and occupies approximately 1.15 GB for weights. April’s Ternary Bonsai variants offer a different accuracy and memory tradeoff and are grouped here alongside routine packings. Apache-licensed weights and specialized inference kernels are available. This family page excludes the later, separately positioned 27B vision-language tier.
2026-03-31
1.7B, 4B, and 8.19B
Low-bit dense decoder-only Transformer
Apache-2.0
Specifications
- Parameters
- 1.7B, 4B, and 8.19B
- Architecture
- Low-bit dense decoder-only Transformer
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Context Window
- 65,536 tokens
- Type
- text
- Modalities
- text
Benchmark Scores
Advanced Specifications
- Model Family
- Bonsai
- API Access
- Not Available
- Chat Interface
- Not Available
- Variants
- Bonsai-1.7BBonsai-4BBonsai-8BTernary-Bonsai-1.7B (April 16)Ternary-Bonsai-4B (April 16)Ternary-Bonsai-8B (April 16)GGUFMLX
Capabilities & Limitations
- Capabilities
- local language generationcodingreasoningon-device inference
- Known Limitations
- Specialized low-bit runtimes and kernels may be requiredPeak runtime memory exceeds weight sizeAccuracy and context vary across size and binary/ternary variants
- Notable Use Cases
- offline assistantslocal coding supportresource-constrained language applications