DBRX

Databricks' 132B mixture-of-experts LLM with 36B active parameters, released with open weights in 2024.

Open SourceSelf HostedOffline CapableGPU Required
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About

DBRX was Databricks' statement release in March 2024: a 132B-parameter mixture-of-experts LLM with 36B active parameters on any input, pretrained on 12T tokens of text and code with a 32K maximum context, using a fine-grained MoE architecture built on the MegaBlocks research project. Base and Instruct variants are downloadable from Hugging Face under the Databricks Open Model License and an accompanying acceptable use policy, which allow commercial use subject to their terms, and the model is also distributed through the Databricks Marketplace. DBRX Instruct specializes in few-turn interactions and was aimed squarely at enterprise workloads, with Databricks publishing benchmarks against contemporary open models at launch. Running it is a serious infrastructure exercise given the parameter count, and the original GitHub repository has since been taken down, leaving the Hugging Face model cards as the primary artifact. The release matters historically as one of the first demonstrations that an enterprise data platform vendor could train a frontier-scale open-weight MoE model entirely in-house.

Should you use DBRX?

Pick it when

Pick this if you run on Databricks and want an open MoE through its Marketplace, or if you study fine-grained MoE design on MegaBlocks using a 132B checkpoint whose license allows commercial use under its terms.

Look elsewhere when

Skip it for new deployments: the GitHub repo was taken down, Instruct targets few-turn chat with a 32K cap, and 36B active parameters still need serious infrastructure. gpt-oss or Mixtral give Apache-2.0 MoE options.

Alternatives to DBRX

  • gpt-oss

    Apache-2.0 MoE whose 120b fits one 80 GB GPU with only 5.1B active plus adjustable reasoning, versus DBRX's 36B active and custom license.

  • Snowflake Arctic

    Another enterprise-pitched 2024 MoE, Apache-2.0 with training cookbooks, better documented for study but even larger at 480B total.

  • Llama 4

    Multimodal MoE with 17B active and up to 10M context on Scout, a broader general model, though its license restricts very large platforms.

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Details

Price
Free
Platform
Local/Desktop
Difficulty
Advanced (4/5)
License
Databricks Open Model License
Added
Jul 29, 2026

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