The closest alternative to Laguna M.1 is Laguna XS.2 (free) — comparable intelligence (— vs —); for a cheaper option, DeepSeek V4 Flash runs $0.090/M vs $0.200/M; for more speed, Morph V3 Fast hits 3.8k t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is GLM 5.2.
Laguna XS.2 (free) is the closest alternative to Laguna M.1, with an Intelligence Index of — (Laguna M.1 scores —) at Free per million input tokens.
Yes — DeepSeek V4 Flash costs $0.090 per million input tokens versus $0.200 for Laguna M.1, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
GLM 5.2 is the strongest open-weight alternative to Laguna M.1 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 50.7 on intelligence.