Purpose guide · Coding

Which AI models belong on a coding shortlist?

Catalog current through July 21, 2026

75 models

Five source-backed models whose Epoch records explicitly include code generation. This is a shortlist, not a performance ranking.

Selection rule

Included when the Epoch record explicitly lists “Code generation.” Release date, lab, access, and weight availability do not improve a model’s position because this page has no positions.

Task-fit shortlist

Evidence first. Your evaluation next.

Ordered by release date for readability, newest first. The order is not a score or recommendation.

  1. 01
    MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2.1

    Released December 23, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  2. 02
    Z.ai

    GLM-4.7

    Released December 22, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  3. 03
    Anthropic

    Claude Opus 4.5

    Released November 24, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  4. 04
    Ai2

    Olmo 3

    Released November 20, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  5. 05
    xAI

    Grok 4.1 Fast

    Released November 19, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  6. 06
    xAI

    Grok 4.1

    Released November 17, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  7. 07
    Moonshot AI

    Kimi K2 Thinking

    Released November 6, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  8. 08
    MiniMax

    MiniMax-M2

    Released October 27, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  9. 09
    Anthropic

    Claude Haiku 4.5

    Released October 15, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  10. 10
    Anthropic

    Claude Sonnet 4.5

    Released September 29, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  11. 11
    Alibaba

    AgentFounder-30B

    Released September 16, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  12. 12
    Alibaba

    Qwen3-Max

    Released September 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  13. 13
    Anthropic

    Claude Opus 4.1

    Released August 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  14. 14
    Google

    Gemini 2.5 Deep Think

    Released August 1, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision · Video · Audio · Mathematics
    Access
    Hosted access (no API); closed weights
    Model source
  15. 15
    Alibaba

    Qwen3-235B-A22B (Jul 2025)

    Released July 25, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  16. 16
    Alibaba

    Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking (Jul 2025)

    Released July 25, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  17. 17
    Alibaba

    Qwen3-Coder-480B-A35B

    Released July 22, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  18. 18
    Moonshot AI

    Kimi K2

    Released July 11, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  19. 19
    xAI

    Grok 4 Heavy

    Released July 10, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  20. 20
    Google

    Gemini 2.5 Pro (Jun 2025)

    Released June 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Video · Multimodal · Speech
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  21. 21
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-R1 (May 2025)

    Released May 28, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  22. 22
    Anthropic

    Claude Opus 4

    Released May 22, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  23. 23
    Anthropic

    Claude Sonnet 4

    Released May 22, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  24. 24
    Google

    Gemini 2.5 Pro (May 2025)

    Released May 6, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Video · Multimodal · Speech
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  25. 25
    Alibaba

    Qwen3-235B-A22B

    Released April 29, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  26. 26
    Meta

    Llama 4 Behemoth (preview)

    Released April 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  27. 27
    Meta

    Llama 4 Maverick

    Released April 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  28. 28
    Meta

    Llama 4 Scout

    Released April 5, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  29. 29
    Google

    Gemini 2.5 Pro (Mar 2025)

    Released March 25, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Video · Multimodal · Speech
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  30. 30
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-V3 (Mar 2025)

    Released March 24, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  31. 31
    OpenAI

    o1-pro

    Released March 19, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Mathematics · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  32. 32
    Baidu

    ERNIE-4.5-VL-424B-A47B (文心大模型4.5)

    Released March 16, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision · Video
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  33. 33
    Tencent

    Hunyuan-TurboS

    Released March 11, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  34. 34
    Alibaba

    QwQ-32B

    Released March 6, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  35. 35
    OpenAI

    GPT-4.5

    Released February 27, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  36. 36
    Anthropic

    Claude 3.7 Sonnet

    Released February 24, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  37. 37
    xAI

    Grok 3

    Released February 17, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  38. 38
    OpenAI

    o3-mini

    Released January 31, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  39. 39
    Moonshot AI

    Kimi k1.5

    Released January 22, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  40. 40
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-R1

    Released January 20, 2025

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  41. 41
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-V3

    Released December 24, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  42. 42
    OpenAI

    o3

    Released December 20, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  43. 43
    Google

    Gemini 2.0 Pro

    Released December 11, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision · Video · Audio
    Access
    Hosted access (no API); closed weights
    Model source
  44. 44
    Meta

    Llama 3.3 70B

    Released December 6, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  45. 45
    OpenAI

    o1

    Released December 5, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Mathematics · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  46. 46
    Amazon

    Amazon Nova Pro

    Released December 3, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Video · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  47. 47
    Tencent

    Hunyuan-Large

    Released November 6, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  48. 48
    NVIDIA

    NVLM-D 72B

    Released October 22, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Vision · Language
    Access
    Open weights (non-commercial); open weights
    Model source
  49. 49
    NVIDIA

    NVLM-H 72B

    Released October 22, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Vision · Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  50. 50
    NVIDIA

    NVLM-X 72B

    Released October 22, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Vision · Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  51. 51
    Alibaba

    Qwen2.5 Instruct (72B)

    Released September 19, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  52. 52
    OpenAI

    o1-mini

    Released September 12, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  53. 53
    OpenAI

    o1-preview

    Released September 12, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Mathematics · Biology
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  54. 54
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-V2.5

    Released September 6, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  55. 55
    xAI

    Grok-2

    Released August 13, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Vision · Multimodal
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  56. 56
    Mistral

    Mistral Large 2

    Released July 24, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (non-commercial); open weights
    Model source
  57. 57
    Meta

    Llama 3.1-405B

    Released July 23, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  58. 58
    OpenAI

    GPT-4o mini

    Released July 18, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Multimodal · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  59. 59
    Anthropic

    Claude 3.5 Sonnet

    Released June 20, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  60. 60
    DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-Coder-V2 236B

    Released June 17, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  61. 61
    Z.ai

    GLM-4 (0520)

    Released May 20, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  62. 62
    Meta

    Llama 3-70B

    Released April 18, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  63. 63
    Anthropic

    Claude 3 Opus

    Released March 4, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  64. 64
    Anthropic

    Claude 3 Sonnet

    Released March 4, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  65. 65
    Alibaba

    Qwen1.5-72B

    Released February 4, 2024

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  66. 66
    Google

    FunSearch

    Released December 14, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Search
    Access
    Open weights (unrestricted); open weights
    Model source
  67. 67
    Alibaba

    Qwen-72B

    Released November 30, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  68. 68
    NVIDIA

    Nemotron-3-8B

    Released November 15, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  69. 69
    01.AI

    Yi-34B

    Released November 2, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  70. 70
    Z.ai

    ChatGLM3-6B

    Released October 27, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Multimodal · Language · Vision
    Access
    Open weights (restricted use); open weights
    Model source
  71. 71
    Microsoft

    CODEFUSION (Python)

    Released October 26, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  72. 72
    Amazon

    Amazon Titan

    Released September 28, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language · Image generation
    Access
    API access; closed weights
    Model source
  73. 73
    Meta

    LLaMA-65B

    Released February 24, 2023

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Open weights (non-commercial); open weights
    Model source
  74. 74
    Google

    PaLM (540B)

    Released April 4, 2022

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source
  75. 75
    Google

    AlphaCode

    Released February 2, 2022

    Matching evidence
    Code generation
    Domain
    Language
    Access
    Unreleased; closed weights
    Model source

Decision criteria

Questions the source can help you ask.

These checks narrow an evaluation plan. They do not replace hands-on testing.

01

Do you need downloadable weights?

Use the weight field to separate API-only models from downloadable options. Read the stated use restriction before deploying an open-weight model.

02

Will the work include images?

Domain labels can identify models with vision or multimodal coverage. They do not prove performance on screenshots, diagrams, or interface work.

03

What must you test yourself?

Run representative repository tasks for correctness, tool use, latency, context handling, and cost. Epoch's catalog does not report those fields.

Evidence boundary

What this guide does not know.

No task-level quality, price, context window, latency, or reliability measurement is present in the Epoch catalog. We therefore publish no ranking or “best” label.

Catalog source: Epoch AI Data on AI Models, retrieved 2026-07-21, CC-BY. Artifact sha256:80ad08198183693101ceb246a5ea272d64c06c147fc41f72cca8526b32483424.

Each listed model links to its model-level source above. See the publication source ledger and methodology for the wider evidence policy.