Ernie, explained
Baidu's Ernie: Free, English-Reachable, Barely Covered.
ERNIE 5.1 shipped in May 2026, individual access has been free since March 2025, and Baidu even open-sourced its 4.5 family under Apache 2.0 — a story Western coverage mostly skipped. Here's the state of it, numbers included, plus the Telegram way to try this model generation.
See the difference
Current models, numbers, real access — the explainer.
Why Ernie is worth ten minutes
- Open-weights followers
- Tracking the largest open releases
- Baidu open-sourced the entire ERNIE 4.5 family (up to 424B-parameter MoE) under Apache 2.0 in June 2025 — bigger news than its coverage suggested.
- Access-curious readers
- Actually trying a Chinese flagship
- Ernie Bot is free for individuals, web-reachable internationally, and no longer demands a Chinese phone number — usable with friction.
- Number skeptics
- Reading chatbot marketing critically
- 300M cumulative users (June 2024) vs ~13M tracker MAU (Jan 2025): both true, different metrics. This page keeps them separate.
Ernie in three facts
- 01
Current model
ERNIE 5.1 (early May 2026), built on the 2.4-trillion-parameter full-modality ERNIE 5.0 from January 2026 — per Baidu's own blog.
- 02
Price
Free for individual users since March 16, 2025; enterprises pay per token via Baidu's Qianfan cloud.
- 03
Access
Web version reachable internationally with English promotion; interface remains Chinese-first. Expect friction, not a wall.
This model generation, minus the friction
DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi answer in @vustbot next to the GPT-5.6 family and Claude — free tier, no new account.
Scope
We don't run ERNIE
No ERNIE model is in @vustbot's lineup and this page never implies otherwise. The same-generation models we do run: DeepSeek, GLM-5.2, Kimi K3 — plus Western frontier.
Sources named
Model dates from Baidu's ERNIE blog and China Daily; free-access policy from Baidu's own announcement; user numbers from Reuters and tracker data — all dated in the copy.
Frequently asked questions
What is the latest ERNIE model?
ERNIE 5.1, released by Baidu in early May 2026 — built on ERNIE 5.0 (January 22, 2026; 2.4T parameters, full-modality) with total parameters compressed to roughly a third of 5.0's. Baidu's own ERNIE blog is the source for both.
Is Ernie Bot free?
For individuals, yes — Baidu made Ernie Bot free to the public on March 16, 2025 (ahead of its own April 1 schedule), and that policy carried through the 5.0 and 5.1 releases. API and enterprise use via Qianfan is paid per token.
Can I use Ernie outside China, in English?
More easily than most Chinese chatbots: the web version is internationally reachable, Baidu publishes English materials, and recent third-party walkthroughs report sign-in no longer requires a Chinese phone number. The interface and content remain Chinese-first, so expect friction rather than a wall.
Is Ernie in @vustbot's lineup?
No — we don't run ERNIE models and don't claim to. From the same model generation, @vustbot runs DeepSeek, GLM-5.2 and Kimi K3 alongside the GPT-5.6 family, Claude and Gemini — in one Telegram chat, free tier, no card, no new account. That's the low-friction way to compare this generation on your own questions.
Ready when you are
Ernie is a real story. Here's the usable version.
Try the same model generation in one Telegram chat — free tier first, no card, switch models mid-question.