Cohere Command or Llama: which to choose for a knowledge base
Both are in Ollama and both run without a GPU in their smaller sizes. Command is built around documents: answers with source citations, tool calling and many languages, and the catalog lists it as supporting Russian while marking Llama as not. But Command licensing splits by version: Command R, R+, R7B, Command A and North Small Translate are CC-BY-NC, meaning non-commercial only, while commercial use opens up with Command A+ from 2026, North Mini Code and North Micro Vision under Apache 2.0. Llama uses one Llama Community License with conditions across the family, but carries the largest ecosystem of fine-tunes and tooling, plus Vision versions.
Comparison based on catalog data
| Parameter | Cohere Command | Llama |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Text, Image + text, Code, Translation | Text, Image + text |
| Developer | Cohere, Canada | Meta, USA |
| Releases | Mar 2024 – Aug 2026 | Feb 2023 – Apr 2025 |
| Sizes | 2.5B – 218B-A25B | 1B – 405B |
| Hardware | Laptop, 1 GPU, Cluster | Laptop, 1 GPU, Cluster |
| Commercial use | Commercial use with conditions | Commercial use with conditions |
| License | Command R, R+, R7B, Command A (2024–2025) and North Small Translate: CC-BY-NC, non-commercial only; Command A+ (05-2026), North Mini Code and North Micro Vision: Apache 2.0 | Llama Community License |
| Russian | Supported | Not supported |
| Ollama | Yes | Yes |
| Without GPU | Yes | Yes |
| Tasks |
|
|
Choose Cohere Command if
- You need knowledge-base answers with citations back to the source
- The product is Russian-language: Command lists Russian, Llama does not
- Commercial use is required: take Command A+ or North under Apache 2.0
Choose Llama if
- You need a base for industry fine-tuning plus ready-made fine-tunes
- You want sizes up to 405B inside a single family
- You need Vision versions for image understanding
Other comparisons
- Qwen or Llama: which to choose for business
- Gemma or Llama: which to choose for business
- Mistral or Llama: which to choose for business
- Llama or DeepSeek: which to run inside your own perimeter
- Nemotron or Llama: which to choose for agents
- Qwen or GigaChat: which to choose for business
- GigaChat or YandexGPT: which to choose for business
- DeepSeek or Qwen: which to choose for business
- gpt-oss or Qwen: which one to run on your own server
- Mistral or Qwen: which to choose for business
- Gemma or Phi: small models for modest hardware
- YandexGPT or Qwen: which to choose for Russian
Need a model for your task?
An open model can run on your own server: data stays in-house, there is no per-request fee, and the model can be fine-tuned on your documents.
- SelectThe model and size for your task and hardware budget
- DeployOn your server or in a closed network, with an API
- Fine-tuneOn your data, or connect a knowledge base
- IntegrateInto your CRM, ERP, bot, website or team chat