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 honest state of it, numbers included, plus the Telegram way to try this model generation.
See the difference
Current models, honest 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.
Honest 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.