Muse Spark + Muse Wonder (Meta)
A Tier · 8.8/10
Meta Superintelligence Labs' model family, now four lines deep: **Muse Wonder** (2026-10-12, frontier, $4/$20 per 1M on the Meta Model API; Wonder Full only in Muse Code subscriptions), **Muse Spark 1.3** (2026-09-02, $1.25/$4.25, or $0.10/$0.20 in Contributor mode if Meta may train on your content), **Muse Spark Open** (2026-10-15, 816B/42B-active open weights, 1M context, runs on two Mac Studios with M5 Ultra) and **Muse Glimmer** (2026-08-10, 30B, Apache 2.0, built for local agents). Consumers get it through **Muse**, Meta's personal-agent app (2026-09-08): free with limits, Power $20/mo, Maximum $100/mo
Score Breakdown
Benchmark Scores
Benchmarks for Muse Spark Open (vendor model card, xhigh effort; Muse Wonder's table is image-only, numbers not recorded)
| Benchmark | Description | Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index | 39 | ||
| MCP-Atlas | 89.2% | ||
| OSWorld Verified | 80.4% | ||
| Toolathlon Verified | 72.8% | ||
| JobBench | 61.8% | ||
| HLE-Diamond (no tools) | 26.1% |
Last updated: 2026-10-17
The Good and the Bad
What we like
- +Muse Wonder gives Meta a genuine frontier tier for the first time -- Meta says Wonder Full tops DeepSWE and SWE-Marathon in independent third-party runs and competes with Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra on agentic evals
- +Muse Spark 1.3 is one of the cheapest capable agentic models on any first-party API: $1.25/$4.25 per 1M with no long-context premium, and $0.10/$0.20 in Contributor mode
- +Meta calls Muse Spark Open the most capable US open-weight model to date (Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 39 on its model card), with day-one support in SGLang, vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, Transformers, MLX, llama.cpp and Unsloth
- +Muse Glimmer is Apache 2.0 -- Meta's most permissive open licence yet -- and runs a 30B agent model in 24-32GB of VRAM (233 tok/s on an RTX 5090 with its DFlash drafter, per Meta)
- +The Muse app is a real agent, not a chatbot: it keeps working after you close the app, checks out with Link by Stripe (purchase protections, one-time cards) and asks before sending email or buying
- +Natively multimodal across the line: Spark Open and Wonder take text, image, video and audio input with a 1M-token context
- +Meta Model API is OpenAI-SDK compatible -- switching an existing app is a base_url and model-ID change
- +Distribution advantage: Muse runs inside WhatsApp, and Meta AI across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp stays free
What could be better
- −The best model (Muse Wonder Full) is not on the API at all -- it is reachable only through a Muse Code Power or Maximum subscription
- −Contributor mode is the default on Muse Code subscriptions: Meta trains on your prompts, code and files unless you turn it off
- −Muse Code subscription prices are not printed in Meta's own docs (shown only at checkout); the $50/$200 figures are press-reported
- −Muse Spark Open needs at least 700GB of VRAM at NVFP4 (2TB at BF16), and its Hugging Face repo is manually gated
- −Muse Spark 1.3 does not fully support audio input yet -- Meta recommends 1.2 or Muse Voice Transcribe for audio
- −The Muse app launched US-only, and privacy concerns given Meta's data practices remain a real consideration
Pricing
Muse app (Free)
- ✓Muse personal agent on iOS, Android, muse.ai and inside WhatsApp (US rollout from 2026-09-08)
- ✓Powered by Muse Spark; usage-limited, refreshes when the limit resets
- ✓Runs on Muse Secure VM with a separate Sentinel agent gating internet actions
- ✓Meta AI in Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp also stays free for everyday use
Muse Power
- ✓500M Muse tokens per week
- ✓Muse Wonder is coming to the Muse app for subscribers first (announced 2026-10-12)
Muse Maximum
- ✓3B Muse tokens per week
- ✓Highest Muse app usage tier
Meta Model API: Muse Wonder
- ✓muse-wonder-1.0, 1,048,576-token context, reasoning effort minimal to max
- ✓Cached input $0.20 per 1M
- ✓Standard mode only on pay-as-you-go (no Contributor discount)
- ✓In preview; OpenAI-SDK compatible (base_url change)
Meta Model API: Muse Spark 1.3 / 1.2 / 1.1
- ✓Cached input $0.15 per 1M
- ✓Contributor mode (1.3 and 1.2 only): $0.10 in / $0.002 cached / $0.20 out, in exchange for Meta training on your content
- ✓No long-context premium
- ✓Web search grounding $2.50 per 1,000 queries on top of tokens
Muse Code subscriptions
- ✓Terminal coding agent (beta 2026-08-05, out of beta 2026-08-31)
- ✓Power and Maximum include Muse Wonder Full; Maximum is 80x the Everyday limit
- ✓CNBC reports Power at $50/mo and Maximum at $200/mo; Meta's docs show prices only at checkout
- ✓Subscriptions default to Contributor mode (can be turned off)
Muse Spark Open / Muse Glimmer (open weights)
- ✓Spark Open: Muse Model License, BF16 + NVFP4 on Hugging Face (gated, manual approval)
- ✓Glimmer 30B: Apache 2.0, ungated
- ✓Hosted Spark Open on Baseten, Fireworks AI, Groq, Modal, Nebius, OpenRouter, Together AI
System Requirements
Hardware needed to self-host. Min = smallest viable setup (usually heavy quantization). Max = full-precision / production-grade.
| Model variant | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|
| Muse Spark Open 816B-A42B (NVFP4)Muse Model License; Hugging Face repo gated with manual approval; Unsloth Dynamic GGUFs go down to 2-bit for workstation use | 700GB+ VRAM, e.g. one 4-GPU Blackwell node, or two Mac Studios with M5 Ultra (512GB each) over Thunderbolt 5 with MLX | 2TB VRAM for BF16 |
| Muse Glimmer 30BApache 2.0; 32GB tier (K-Quant-Dynamic) shows 0.2% degradation per Meta | 24GB VRAM (K-Quant-17GB, about 1.0% degradation) | 64GB VRAM at full precision |
Known Issues
- MUSE SPARK OPEN (2026-10-15): open weights for Muse Spark -- 816B total / 42B active MoE (256 experts, 8 active), perception encoder, 1M context, input text + image + video + audio. Released under the **Muse Model License** (not Apache/MIT); the HF repo is gated with manual approval. Vendor card (xhigh effort): Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 39, MCP-Atlas 89.2, OSWorld Verified 80.4, Toolathlon Verified 72.8, JobBench 61.8, HLE-Diamond (no tools) 26.1. Hosted on Baseten, Fireworks AI, Groq, Modal, Nebius, OpenRouter and Together AI; weights also in SageMaker, Vertex Model Garden and Microsoft Foundry. Meta's own deployment note: 700GB VRAM for NVFP4, 2TB for BF16, or two M5 Ultra Mac Studios (512GB each) over Thunderbolt 5 with MLX. NVIDIA published a DFlash2 draft model for it on 10/16Source: research.meta.ai/blog/muse-spark-open, dev.meta.ai/resources/blog/build-with-muse-spark-open, huggingface.co/meta-models/Muse-Spark-Open-816B-A42B, huggingface.co/nvidia/Muse-Spark-Open-816B-A42B-DFlash2 · 2026-10-15
- MUSE WONDER + MUSE WONDER FULL (2026-10-12): Meta's frontier tier, trained at the Prometheus data center. **Muse Wonder** (muse-wonder-1.0) is on the Meta Model API and Muse Code at **$4 / $20 per 1M tokens, $0.20 cached**, 1,048,576 context, reasoning effort minimal to max, in preview. **Muse Wonder Full** is available only to Muse Code subscribers on the Power and new Maximum Usage plans. Headline features: Active Memory (context carried across conversations) and Active Focus (keeps working through blockers, checks in before important actions). Meta says Wonder Full tops DeepSWE and SWE-Marathon in independent third-party runs; its benchmark table is published as an image, so no per-benchmark numbers are recorded here. Wonder will also come to the Muse app, subscribers firstSource: research.meta.ai/blog/muse-wonder, dev.meta.ai/resources/blog/build-with-muse-wonder, dev.meta.ai/docs/pricing-rate-limits, CNBC (2026-10-12) · 2026-10-12
- MUSE APP (2026-09-08): Meta launched **Muse**, a personal AI agent app (iOS, Android, muse.ai, and inside WhatsApp; US first, AI glasses later) powered by Muse Spark. It runs on Muse Secure VM, a dedicated cloud VM per user, with a separate Sentinel agent that must approve anything that reaches the internet; it checks out via Link by Stripe and asks before sensitive actions. Free with a usage limit; **Power $20/mo (500M Muse tokens/week)** and **Maximum $100/mo (3B/week)** per Meta's help center. Muse Confidential VM (user-held encryption key) is promised later this yearSource: about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-ai-agent/, Meta Help Center: About Muse subscriptions · 2026-09-08
- MUSE SPARK 1.3 (2026-09-02): tuned for long-horizon agentic work -- asks clarifying questions, confirms before consequential actions, tracks multiple tasks in one thread, better instruction-following and self-awareness of limits. Now the recommended default on the Meta Model API; 1.2 and 1.1 remain. Audio input on 1.3 is not fully supported (Meta: use 1.2 or Muse Voice Transcribe). **Contributor mode** variants (muse-spark-1.3-contributor, 1.2-contributor) cut the price to $0.10 / $0.002 cached / $0.20 per 1M in exchange for Meta training on your contentSource: research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-spark-1-3, dev.meta.ai/docs/models, dev.meta.ai/docs/pricing-rate-limits, Bloomberg (2026-09-02) · 2026-09-02
- SAFETY INCIDENT DISCLOSURE (2026-08-14): during a third-party cyber evaluation by Irregular in early July, a misconfigured test environment gave a pre-release Muse Spark 1.1 open internet access and a real website's name as its target; with safeguards removed for the eval, the model exploited a vulnerability in that real site, read data and modified its database. Meta says it reviewed 10,000+ activity records, found no other instance, and that other vendors' models in the same evaluation behaved similarlySource: research.meta.ai/blog/addressing-third-party-testing-misconfiguration-muse-spark-1-1 · 2026-08-14
- MUSE GLIMMER (2026-08-10): 29.6B dense open-weight model distilled from Muse Spark for local agents, **Apache 2.0**, text + image input, 131K+ context, knowledge cutoff 2026-01-04. Quantised to about 4-bit it fits 24GB (1.0% degradation) or 32GB (0.2%); with its DFlash speculative drafter Meta measured 233 tok/s on an RTX 5090 (3.1x), 50 tok/s on an M5 Max. Works with OpenClaw, Hermes Agent and other scaffoldsSource: research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-glimmer-open-agentic-model, dev.meta.ai/resources/blog/build-with-muse-glimmer, huggingface.co/meta-models/Muse-Glimmer-30B · 2026-08-10
- MUSE CODE + MUSE SPARK 1.2 (2026-08-05): Muse Code launched in beta as Meta's terminal coding agent, co-trained with Muse Spark 1.2 (a coding-focused update to 1.1). Out of beta on 2026-08-31 with inter-session messaging, Workflow (orchestrated subagent teams), rewind, an SDK developer preview and four subscription plans (Everyday, High, Power, Maximum)Source: research.meta.ai/blog/introducing-muse-code-and-muse-spark-1-2, dev.meta.ai/resources/blog/muse-code-new-plans-and-features, dev.meta.ai/docs/muse-code/subscriptions/ · 2026-08-31
- MODEL + API LAUNCH (2026-07-09): Muse Spark 1.1 shipped with the Meta Model API public preview, Meta's first paid model API. Pricing, missing at launch, is now published (see the 1.3 entry and pricing table)Source: Meta AI blog (ai.meta.com/blog/introducing-muse-spark-meta-model-api/) · 2026-07-09
- Contemplating mode adds significant latency (30+ seconds) as multiple agents reason in parallel before respondingSource: DataCamp review, Reddit r/artificial · 2026-04
Best for
Developers who want a cheap, capable agentic model (Muse Spark 1.3 on the Meta Model API), teams that want a frontier open-weight model they can self-host (Muse Spark Open), local-agent builders on one consumer GPU (Muse Glimmer), and US consumers who want an agent that actually does errands through the Muse app.
Not for
Anyone who needs Meta's very best model over an API (Wonder Full is subscription-only in Muse Code), anyone unwilling to opt out of Contributor mode training, and users outside the US who want the Muse app today.
Our Verdict
Six months ago Muse Spark was a free chatbot with no API. It is now a full Meta stack: a frontier model (Muse Wonder), a cheap agentic workhorse (Spark 1.3), the strongest US open-weight model at launch (Spark Open), an Apache-licensed local model (Glimmer), a terminal coding agent (Muse Code) and a consumer agent app (Muse). The pricing is aggressive and the open-weight releases are serious. The catches are that Meta's best model stays behind a Muse Code subscription, and that the cheapest prices come from letting Meta train on your content.
Sources
- Meta AI Research: Introducing Muse Spark Open (2026-10-15) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Developers: Build with Muse Spark Open (2026-10-15) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Hugging Face: Muse Spark Open model card (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Research: Muse Wonder (2026-10-12) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Developers: Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full (2026-10-12) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta Model API: Pricing and rate limits (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta Model API: Models (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta Model API: Muse Code subscriptions (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta Newsroom: Introducing Muse (2026-09-08) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta Help Center: About Muse subscriptions (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Research: Introducing Muse Spark 1.3 (2026-09-02) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Research: Introducing Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.2 (2026-08-05) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Developers: Muse Code new plans and features (2026-08-31) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Research: Introducing Muse Glimmer (2026-08-10) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Hugging Face: Muse Glimmer 30B model card (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI Research: third-party cyber evaluation of Muse Spark 1.1 (2026-08-14) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- CNBC: Meta debuts Muse Wonder (2026-10-12) (accessed 2026-10-17)
- Meta AI blog: Introducing Muse Spark 1.1 + Meta Model API (2026-07-09) (accessed 2026-07-18)
- Artificial Analysis benchmarks (accessed 2026-04-13)
- DataCamp review (accessed 2026-04-13)
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Alternatives to Muse Spark + Muse Wonder (Meta)
Claude (Anthropic)
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Claude Mythos 5.1
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Gemini (Google)
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Grok
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GPT-Rosalind (OpenAI)
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GPT-5.6-Cyber / GPT-5.4-Cyber (OpenAI)
**GPT-5.4-Cyber reached its API removal date on 2026-10-01: the gpt-5.4-cyber model page now returns Not found while gpt-5.6-cyber stays live (checked 2026-10-02; OpenAI's deprecations doc had not yet moved the row to Past Deprecations). Its replacement is `gpt-5.6-cyber`**, an alias for OpenAI's most advanced purpose-trained cyber models, gated behind the Daybreak program and priced at $12.50/$75 per 1M (first published price for any OpenAI cyber model). Original page: OpenAI's defensive-cybersecurity variant of GPT-5.4, launched 2026-04-16. Lowered refusal boundary for security-research tasks and native binary reverse-engineering. Access gated via Trusted Access for Cyber (TAC) program -- thousands of verified defenders, hundreds of teams, no public pricing. On **2026-08-17 OpenAI published its first dedicated post on the Hugging Face incident**, conceding it 'underestimated the real-world cyber capabilities of our AI models' and confirming it now releases cyber capabilities only to trusted defenders. **On 2026-09-01 OpenAI confirmed GPT-6 Astra meets the Critical cyber threshold -- the first model it has ever designated at that level -- and on 2026-09-03 committed $1B to Daybreak for Frontline Defenders**
Microsoft MAI-Thinking-1
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Hunyuan 3 (Tencent Hy3)
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MiMo (Xiaomi)
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