Text model · Qwen2.5
Qwen2.5 0.5B requirements
Qwen2.5 family · 0.494B params · released 2024-09-19 · 23.2M Ollama pulls. Minimum to run at Q4_K_M: Apple M1 (8GB).
Quantization sizes
| Quantization | Size on disk |
|---|---|
| Q2_K | 0.2 GB est |
| Q3_K_M | 0.2 GB est |
| Q4_K_M (default) | 0.491 GB |
| Q5_K_M | 0.4 GB est |
| Q6_K | 0.4 GB est |
| Q8_0 | 0.676 GB |
| FP16 | 1 GB est |
Lower quant = smaller and faster, slightly lower quality. Q4_K_M is the common default.
Run it
ollama run qwen2.5:0.5b llama-cli -hf Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct-GGUF:Q4_K_M lms get Qwen/Qwen2.5-0.5B-Instruct-GGUF Which devices can run Qwen2.5 0.5B?
Apple Silicon Macs
RAM-only laptops
iPhone & iPad
Android
NVIDIA GPUs
AMD GPUs
FAQ
How much VRAM or RAM does Qwen2.5 0.5B need?
At Q4_K_M, Qwen2.5 0.5B needs about 1.5 GB (weights ~0.491 GB + KV cache + overhead) at a 4k context. At Q8_0 budget ~1.7 GB.
Can Qwen2.5 0.5B run on a laptop?
Yes, Qwen2.5 0.5B fits on a 16 GB machine at Q4_K_M and runs on Apple Silicon or a 12 GB+ GPU comfortably.
Can I use Qwen2.5 0.5B commercially?
Yes. Qwen2.5 0.5B is licensed Apache-2.0, which permits commercial use.
Smallest Qwen2.5 dense model. Trained on 18T tokens, supports 29+ languages, 128K context (generates up to 8K). Ideal for on-device and microcontroller-class edge inference.
Sources
Memory figures are estimates. See methodology.