LLM Underdogs of 2025

LLM Underdogs of 2025

2025 has been a flurry of AI madness that has been hard to keep up with. I’ve been deep in learning and experimenting in the AI space and noticed that while everyone’s hyping up the latest GPT variant or Claude release, there are some genuinely impressive open-source models that feel like they just flew under the radar in 2025. These aren’t just “good for their size”, they’re legit excellent models that you can run locally, for free, and deserve more attention.