OpenLLaMA - AI Language Models Tool

Overview

OpenLLaMA is an open-source reproduction of Meta AI’s LLaMA family that provides pretrained 3B, 7B and 13B parameter models trained on ~1T tokens and released under an Apache‑2.0 license. The project publishes both PyTorch (Hugging Face Transformers) and JAX (EasyLM) weights and evaluation results; v1 models are trained on the RedPajama dataset while v2 models use a refined mixture (Falcon refined‑web, StarCoder, and selected RedPajama subsets) intended to improve code and web-text performance. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama)) OpenLLaMA is positioned as a permissively licensed, drop‑in alternative to LLaMA for researchers and engineers who want full-weight access and reproducible training artifacts (JAX training pipeline EasyLM, TPU‑v4 training, and detailed evaluation tables are provided in the repo). The README documents known tokenizer behavior (v1 tokenizer collapses multiple spaces — problematic for code — fixed in v2) and gives example code for loading models via Hugging Face Transformers. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))

GitHub Statistics

  • Stars: 7,533
  • Forks: 407
  • Contributors: 2
  • License: Apache-2.0
  • Last Updated: 2023-07-16T08:35:31Z

Repository shows strong community interest (≈7.5k stars, ≈407 forks) and a permissive Apache‑2.0 license; most public activity (model releases, tokenizer fixes) occurred in mid‑2023. The project provides both checkpoints and evaluation artifacts but has a small core author list (few contributors) and limited ongoing commits since the 2023 release cycle; issues and discussions contain user reports and usage questions (tokenizer, model conversion, inference). ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))

Installation

Install via pip:

git clone https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama.git
pip install -U transformers accelerate safetensors torch
python -c "from transformers import LlamaTokenizer, LlamaForCausalLM; model_path='openlm-research/open_llama_3b_v2'; tokenizer=LlamaTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_path); model=LlamaForCausalLM.from_pretrained(model_path, torch_dtype='torch.float16', device_map='auto'); print('loaded')"
Note: avoid Hugging Face fast tokenizer for some OpenLLaMA checkpoints; use LlamaTokenizer or AutoTokenizer(..., use_fast=False) per project guidance. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))

Key Features

  • Pretrained model sizes: 3B, 7B and 13B parameter checkpoints (v1 and v2 variants). ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))
  • Dual weight formats: PyTorch (Transformers) and JAX (EasyLM) for inference and training. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))
  • Permissive Apache‑2.0 license — suitable for research and many commercial use cases. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))
  • v2 data mixture includes Falcon refined‑web, StarCoder, and RedPajama subsets (improved code/web performance). ([huggingface.co](https://huggingface.co/openlm-research/open_llama_3b_v2))
  • Tokenizer notes: v1 merged multiple spaces (bad for code); v2 addresses code tokenization issues. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))

Community

OpenLLaMA attracted rapid attention after release (thousands of GitHub stars and Hugging Face downloads) and active early discussion about tokenizer behavior and model conversions. Community threads and issues document practical guidance (use_fast=False, model loading examples) and experiments (fine‑tuning, quantization, Vicuna-style instruction tuning). Maintainer activity and releases peaked during mid‑2023; the repo remains a popular reference weight source, with much of the real‑world usage and forks happening on Hugging Face and third‑party tooling. ([github.com](https://github.com/openlm-research/open_llama))

Last Refreshed: 2026-03-03

Key Information

  • Category: Language Models
  • Type: AI Language Models Tool