Step 5 Preview, a 1M-context MoE from StepFun, shows up on OpenRouter
openrouter.ai69 points by AnneWodell 5 hours ago
69 points by AnneWodell 5 hours ago
Wonder if this was the space bunny alpha model
After some quick tests, it likely isn't. Additionally, Space Bunny Alpha had hints it was a Minimax-variant model.
Why is that interesting?
Stepfun made a close to SOTA model with 3.5. They got overtaken quickly but have shown enough to be given attention when a new model releases.
It’s also an open model. Even if you only use Opus and Sol, these open models help push them and the frontier.
I like trying new models but I wish we’d get something actually new. Like a new architecture or something. LLMs are just so sloppish. We can do better.
Talk is cheap. You have to actually beat transformers first. All alternate architectures that have sprung up are sidegrades at best.
It doesn't look competitive along any dimension: https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/step-5#intelligence-com...
Better luck next time.
It's fast. The average speed is 115 tokens/sec according to OpenRouter. I haven't tested the model to see how it is in practice, but I'd certainly pay a little extra for faster inference.
Edit: Though the average latency of 1.5s isn't very low, so it might not be that fast in practice for agentic work. Also, I don't know how much thinking it does, as that's generally been the drawback to Chinese models.
Using Artificial Analysis
Model | Reasoning | Intelligence Index | Artificial Analysis million output tokens for the intelligence index -|-|-|- Step 5 | ? | 44 | 160 GLM 5.3 | Max | 45 | 210 MiMo V2.6 Pro | ? | 46 | 140 Kimi K3 | Max | 44 | 160 Qwen Max 0902 | ? | 45 | 190 DeepSeek 4.1 Flash | Max | 39 | 250 GLM 5.3-flash | Max | 42 | 180 GPT-6 Astra | Low | 46 | 10
It looks reasonable by open model standards. This doesn't capture the fact that DeepSeek and Step 5 have much higher token/s than the rest, other than MiMo Ultraspeed. MiMo V2.6 is either slow but cheap, or fast but expensive. Just based on these numbers, it looks good. Astra-low is one of the fastest and cheapest because it doesn't use many tokens, but I've never tried it. I liked DeepSeek and GLM when I used them.
[flagged]
Without the pelicans I don’t know what to think
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12m 0s and $0.28
>Draw a Hacker News-style comment thread. Top comment by a user named "pelican_enjoyer": "Without the pelicans I don't know what to think." Reply from "minimaxir" in a grumpy tone: "Since people keep doing it: no, you don't have to make an allusion to Simon's pelicans every time a Hacker News thread about a new LLM pops up. It's a lower-effort joke than even Reddit memes." Beside the thread, show a pelican riding a bicycle, looking smug.
Since people keep doing it: no, you don't have to make an allusion to Simon's pelicans every time a Hacker News thread about a new LLM pops up. It's a lower-effort joke than even Reddit memes.
I'd just read it as social friction, just like I'd read your comment as that very same thing.
This is the consensus mechanism doing its job, essentially.
__
Though to be fair, the way I frame it assumes no connections between nodes and independent choices, when in reality, we have groups supporting each other.
So it's not necessarily the best mechanism, as social cohesion and other such dysfunctions might be steering away from the objectively correct solution through not necessarily rational biases.
Or rather not necessarily rational when viewed in just the specific context, but possibly rational when zooming out and considering whole-subsystem health.
Low-effort content is generally discouraged on Hacker News because it lowers the quality of the site. It's not a deep commentary on socioeconomics.
Like posting the exact same personal brand-building under each new model you mean?
As said, there is no right or wrong here. Well, technically there is and it is my opinion (obviously), but if we take a step back, it's exactly what I just described and you (unfortunately) discarded through bulldozing.
The """"thought leaders"""" will have to live with the fact that some people just don't think that their work is adding all that much value. It's a bit unpleasant for the ego of course, but that's kinda the trade when making money with fluff.
There was a better alternative, buried by dumb HN censorship:
The Assbench: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807688