Dolly Models by Databricks Mosaic
Last refreshed 2026-05-19. Next refresh: weekly.
Details
About
The Dolly family of large language models (LLMs), developed by Databricks, includes notable models like Dolly v1 and Dolly v2. Dolly v1, based on EleutherAI's GPT-J with 6 billion parameters, showcased that older, open-source models can exhibit strong instruction-following capabilities with limited fine-tuning on a high-quality dataset 248. Initially, its commercial use was limited by the licensing of its training data 48. To overcome this, Dolly v2 introduced a new dataset, "databricks-dolly-15k," which allows for both research and commercial utilization, and includes a model with 12 billion parameters based on EleutherAI's Pythia-12b 13. The Dolly models are engineered to comprehend and execute instructions articulated in natural language. Although they may not match the cutting-edge models in terms of performance, they provide an economical and versatile solution for entities aspiring to develop customized LLMs 212.
Decision facts
- Best fit
- chatbot and role-playing use cases
- Capability starting point
- Dolly 1.6B with 2k context
- Lowest tracked input
- Not tracked
- Closest related family
- MPT
Current Variants
Use-when guidance is based on each model's tracked capabilities, context window, release date, and replacement status.
Use when the workload needs 2k context and 1.6B parameters.
| Model | Use when | Released | Signals | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dolly 1.6B | Use when the workload needs 2k context and 1.6B parameters. | 2023-03 | 2k context1.6B parameters | Current |
Release Timeline
1 release groupSpecifications(1 models)
| Model | Released | Context | Parameters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolly 1.6B | 2023-03 | 2k | 1.6b |
