eml-eda/plinio

Plinio is a specialized tool for model compression (specifically PIT - Pruning In-Time) originating from the EML-EDA research group. While it provides functional automated optimization for PyTorch models, its defensibility is low due to stagnant adoption (only 49 stars after nearly 4 years) and zero recent velocity. The field of model optimization is heavily crowded; it competes with industry-standard tools like Microsoft NNI, Sony's Model Optimization Toolkit, and more importantly, the native 'torch.ao' (Architecture Optimization) suite from Meta. As frontier labs and hardware vendors (NVIDIA with TensorRT, Qualcomm with SNPE) integrate pruning and quantization deeper into their proprietary stacks and core frameworks, independent research libraries without massive community backing or unique hardware-level moats face a very high risk of obsolescence. The project's specific techniques for 'Complexity-aware NAS' are academically sound but have not translated into a market-dominant position or a significant ecosystem of users.