1-bit Bonsai 8B vs Z-1

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, and math workflows.

Agentic
Coding
Multimodal & Grounded
Reasoning
Knowledge
Instruction Following
Multilingual
Mathematics

1-bit Bonsai 8B· Z-1

Quick Verdict

Pick 1-bit Bonsai 8B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Z-1 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 128K context window.

1-bit Bonsai 8B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 50 to 44. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

1-bit Bonsai 8B's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 66 against 57.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 30% to 51%. Z-1 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Z-1 gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 64K for 1-bit Bonsai 8B.

Operational tradeoffs

ProviderPrism MLZ
PriceFree*Pricing unavailable
SpeedN/AN/A
TTFTN/AN/A
Context64K128K

Decision framing

BenchLM keeps the benchmark table and the operator tradeoffs on the same page so a better score does not hide a materially slower, pricier, or smaller-context model.

Runtime metrics show N/A when BenchLM does not have a sourced snapshot for that exact model. The scoring rules and freshness policy are documented on the methodology page.

Benchmark1-bit Bonsai 8BZ-1
Agentic
Terminal-Bench 2.039%
BrowseComp49%
OSWorld-Verified41%
Coding
HumanEval44%
SWE-bench Verified33%
LiveCodeBench22%
SWE-bench Pro30%
Multimodal & Grounded
MMMU-Pro46%
OfficeQA Pro56%
ReasoningZ-1 wins
MuSR50%48%
BBH74%
LongBench v256%
MRCRv257%
KnowledgeZ-1 wins
GPQA30%51%
MMLU52%
SuperGPQA49%
MMLU-Pro64%
HLE6%
FrontierScience51%
SimpleQA50%
Instruction FollowingZ-1 wins
IFEval79.8%80%
Multilingual
MGSM74%
MMLU-ProX72%
Mathematics1-bit Bonsai 8B wins
MATH-50066%73%
AIME 202352%
AIME 202454%
AIME 202553%
HMMT Feb 202348%
HMMT Feb 202450%
HMMT Feb 202549%
BRUMO 202551%
Frequently Asked Questions (5)

Which is better, 1-bit Bonsai 8B or Z-1?

1-bit Bonsai 8B is ahead overall, 50 to 44. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 30% and 51%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, 1-bit Bonsai 8B or Z-1?

Z-1 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 43.1 versus 30. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, 1-bit Bonsai 8B or Z-1?

1-bit Bonsai 8B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 66 versus 57.3. Inside this category, MATH-500 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, 1-bit Bonsai 8B or Z-1?

Z-1 has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 54.2 versus 50. Inside this category, MuSR is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, 1-bit Bonsai 8B or Z-1?

Z-1 has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 80 versus 79.8. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 31, 2026

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