Fusion vs North Mini Code
Multi-model panel — Fable 5 + GPT-5.5, ensembled. Beats Fable 5 at half the price. vs Cohere's free coder that beats models 4× its size, runs on your own Mac.
What I tested — same prompt, two models
I run the same fixed prompt set through every new model the day it drops — same string, one shot, single HTML file out — and I score the result 0–10 on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. Below is what came out when I gave the exact same prompts to Fusion and North Mini Code, side by side, on 0 shared tasks inside the Agent Operating System.
Both models were given identical prompts inside the Agent Operating System — no help, no iteration, no "best of N" tricks. I run each prompt once, save the HTML file the model produces, and score it 0–10 on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. The scoring is mine. The verdicts below are pulled from my source comparison guides at agentos.guide where I publish every score and the reasoning behind it.
Fusion · Dispatched from Agent OS for research-heavy prompts where ensemble accuracy outweighs single-model speed.
North Mini Code · Wired into the Agent OS as the local-first coder for offline workflows. Bench scoring pending.
Side-by-side on 0 shared tasks
Click any cell to play that model's actual one-shot attempt. Medals are derived from my 0–10 scores per task (highest = 🥇, second = 🥈, third = 🥉).
Strengths & weaknesses I logged
Fusion
Strengths
- Premium Fusion panel scored 69.0% on DRACO deep-research benchmark — beats solo Fable 5 by +3.7 points
- Budget panel ties Fable 5 at ~64.7% for roughly half the cost
- Vendor-agnostic — model panel can swap as new frontier releases land
Trade-offs
- Ensemble latency higher than any single model (panel calls run in parallel but the slowest still gates the response)
- No per-task goldiebench scoring yet — bench rank pending
North Mini Code
Strengths
- Tiny + fast — runs locally with no GPU farm required
- Out-scores models 4× its parameter count on agent-coding benchmarks (Cohere's own number)
- Zero cost — free for individuals, runs offline
Trade-offs
- Cohere's own number, not independently verified
- No goldiebench per-task scores yet
Pricing & context — the spec sheet
| Spec | Fusion | North Mini Code |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | OpenRouter | Cohere |
| Context window | Varies — depends on which panel models are dispatched | Specs not yet public |
| Price | OpenRouter Fusion API pricing | Free — local |
| Pricing detail | OpenRouter's Fusion API dispatches a single prompt to multiple frontier models and ensembles the answers. Premium panel: Fable 5 + GPT-5.5. Budget panel: cheaper open-weights models. Roughly half the per-token cost of a Fable 5 solo call. | Cohere's free coding model — small parameter count, runs locally, designed to out-punch models four times its size on agent-coding benchmarks. No token bill, no API key required. |
| Release | 2026-06-14 | 2026-06-19 |
| Bench coverage | 0/0 scored · avg — | 0/0 scored · avg — |
The verdict — which should you pick?
Not enough scored shared tasks yet for a head-to-head average. The live demos for both are on the matrix above — play them and form your own opinion.
If you only run one of these inside your stack, the head-to-head average above is the call. If you can run both, my honest play is to wire Fusion and North Mini Code both into the Agent Operating System and dispatch each from the kanban by task type — deep-research workflows where panel consensus beats single-model answers → Fusion, local coding loops on a mac where you don't want a token meter → North Mini Code. That's the same setup I run for the 3,600+ founders inside the AI Profit Boardroom.
FAQ — Fusion vs North Mini Code
Which is better, Fusion or North Mini Code?
On Goldie Bench, Fusion averages no scored verdicts yet across the shared tasks, with 0 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze overall. North Mini Code averages no scored verdicts yet, with 0 gold, 0 silver, 0 bronze. Not enough scored shared tasks yet to call a winner.
How much does Fusion cost vs North Mini Code?
Fusion: OpenRouter's Fusion API dispatches a single prompt to multiple frontier models and ensembles the answers. Premium panel: Fable 5 + GPT-5.5. Budget panel: cheaper open-weights models. Roughly half the per-token cost of a Fable 5 solo call. North Mini Code: Cohere's free coding model — small parameter count, runs locally, designed to out-punch models four times its size on agent-coding benchmarks. No token bill, no API key required.
What's the context window for Fusion vs North Mini Code?
Fusion has a Varies — depends on which panel models are dispatched context window. North Mini Code has a Specs not yet public context window.
When should I pick Fusion over North Mini Code?
Pick Fusion for: Deep-research workflows where panel consensus beats single-model answers; Cost-sensitive operators who want Fable-5-class output at ~half the bill; Production agents that benefit from vendor-redundancy on every call. The trade-off is the weaknesses we logged on the bench: Ensemble latency higher than any single model (panel calls run in parallel but the slowest still gates the response); No per-task goldiebench scoring yet — bench rank pending.
When should I pick North Mini Code over Fusion?
Pick North Mini Code for: Local coding loops on a Mac where you don't want a token meter; Offline / air-gapped agent workflows; Operators who want to compare a small-but-mighty model against the larger field. The trade-off is the weaknesses we logged on the bench: Cohere's own number, not independently verified; No goldiebench per-task scores yet.
How does Goldie Bench score Fusion vs North Mini Code?
Every demo on this page was built by Julian Goldie inside the Agent Operating System — same fixed prompt for both models, one shot, single HTML file out. Each result gets a 0–10 score on whether it ran, how close it hit the brief, and how good it looked. The highest score on each task gets gold; second gets silver; third gets bronze. See methodology for full provenance.
Related comparisons
Other head-to-heads using the same scoring system:
Fusion vs Opus 4.8 North Mini Code vs Opus 4.8 Fusion vs GLM-5.2 North Mini Code vs GLM-5.2 Fusion vs Grok North Mini Code vs Grok Fusion vs Qwen 3.7 North Mini Code vs Qwen 3.7Full model pages: Fusion · North Mini Code · back to the leaderboard
Run this stack yourself.
Every demo on this bench was built inside the Agent Operating System — one prompt, one shot, single HTML file out. The Agent OS, the prompts, the templates, the weekly walkthroughs and 3,600+ founders shipping with it every day all live inside the AI Profit Boardroom.