Open-weights models — LLaVA, Qwen-VL, Whisper, many YOLO builds — release the actual weight files. You can run them on your own hardware, keep data private, and adapt them, at the cost of operating the infrastructure yourself. The opposite is a closed model behind an API.
The book · Volume 6 of 7
AI for Video: A Complete Guide to Intelligence in Video Products: From Models and Inference to Computer Vision, Speech, Search, and Generative Video
An open-weights model keeps data private and allows fine-tuning, and in exchange you run the infrastructure yourself. This volume covers open-weights models in the open-versus-closed procurement decision: model artifacts, licensing, fine-tuning for a domain, and deployment topologies for self-hosting. Written by Nikolay Sapunov, CEO at Fora Soft.
Weighing an open-weights model against a paid API?
Tell us the task and volume, and we will compare open-weights and closed options on accuracy, total cost and data privacy for your case. 250+ video products shipped since 2005.
