{"slug": "local-llms-and-disappointment", "title": "Local LLMs and Disappointment", "summary": "A developer testing local LLMs for code refactoring found that heavily quantized models struggled with complex multi-step tasks, while DeepSeek V4 Flash completed the task in about 2 minutes. The experience highlights limitations of quantized local models for complex coding in 2026.", "body_md": "Yesterday I was thinking about my MCP server, and how it has 10 functions—if I could **combine** some of the **tools**, could I make it faster? I decided to use a prompt to combine some of the functions in **Pi** code with `llama-cpp`\n\n.\n\nI tried:\n\n• Laguna XS 2.1, which in a 4-bit quantized form became confused and ended up not able to fix a compile-time error in Rust.\n\n• Meta Muse Glimmer, which in a 2-bit form could not delete an unneeded function, and seemed to continue desperately trying to delete the function until I shut it down.\n\nIt was a **disappointing** experience, but the task was more **complex** and required multiple steps. It seems the quantized models became confused on some of the Rust syntax (which might have been somewhat non-standard).\n\nI then used an online server with **DeepSeek V4 Flash**, which solved the task in about **2 minutes**. I had to rewrite some of the code, but DeepSeek basically did a lot of the initial work for me. For heavily-quantized local models in 2026, it is best to stick to simple tasks that require just one or two steps.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/local-llms-and-disappointment", "canonical_source": "https://www.dotnetperls.com/2026_8_18_local-llms-disappointment", "published_at": "2026-08-18 07:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-18 12:42:54.251173+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["large-language-models", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Laguna XS 2.1", "Meta Muse Glimmer", "DeepSeek V4 Flash", "llama-cpp", "Rust"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/local-llms-and-disappointment", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/local-llms-and-disappointment.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/local-llms-and-disappointment.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/local-llms-and-disappointment.jsonld"}}