Is MiniMax H3 Open Source or Open Weights?

Overview

MiniMax markets H3 as open-weight, but as of early August 2026 the weights have not been released — so in practice it is neither open source nor downloadable open weights yet. Announced on July 31, 2026, it comes with a promise to open the weights “in the coming days,” but there is no public repository at the moment, and it is reachable only through the hosted API. Source note: Verified 2026-08-06 against the MiniMax official H3 blog, MiniMax Video Generation API docs, and Hugging Face MiniMax-H3 model page.

The distinction matters. “Open weights” means you can download the model files and run them yourself under a license, though not necessarily see the training code or data, which “open source” would imply. MiniMax’s plan is the former, not the latter — and even that is pending until the files actually ship.

There is also a license attached to the plan: the MiniMax Community License, reported to allow commercial use for organizations under $20M in revenue with attribution, though the final text is not published.

So today, treat H3 as an API-first model with open weights announced but not yet available. Watch MiniMax’s official channels for the release, and read the license when the repository lands.