Model comparison

gpt-oss-20b vs o3-pro

o3-pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 32.5 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-20b costs 972× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 5 shared benchmarks.

gpt-oss-20b OpenAI

32.5

Rank #255 Confirmed

o3-pro OpenAI

42.9

Rank #105 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-20b scores higher in 1 category and o3-pro in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in long context, where o3-pro leads 72.2 to 37.9.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is LMCA: 14.5% for gpt-oss-20b and 38.5% for o3-pro.
  • gpt-oss-20b is cheaper at $0.018 / $0.09 per million input/output tokens, against $20 / $80 for o3-pro.
  • o3-pro accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 131K.
  • gpt-oss-20b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

gpt-oss-20b and o3-pro specifications
gpt-oss-20bo3-pro
ProviderOpenAIOpenAI
Noometry Index32.542.9
Released2025-08-052025-06-10
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K200K
Max output16K100K
Input $ / M tokens$0.018$20
Output $ / M tokens$0.09$80
Results tracked3412

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Category by category

Coding o3-pro leads

gpt-oss-20b: 37.6 (#192), o3-pro: 55.5 (#24)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
WeirdML40.9%58.2%
Aider Polyglot—84.9%
SciCode34.4%—
LMArena Coding1306—
ALE-Bench566.05—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

gpt-oss-20b: 9.3 (#154), o3-pro: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
Terminal-Bench3.4%—

Reasoning o3-pro leads

gpt-oss-20b: 19.3 (#261), o3-pro: 23.8 (#171)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
Kagi LLM Benchmark53.2%72.1%
DTBench68%86.9%
LMCA14.5%38.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index137.82147.42
ARC-AGI-2—4.9%
ARC-AGI-1—59.3%
CritPt1.4%—
Chess Puzzles4%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1274—

Math Not comparable

gpt-oss-20b: 39.4 (#103), o3-pro: —

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202565.3%—
Omni-MATH56.5%—
LMArena Math1317—

Knowledge gpt-oss-20b leads

gpt-oss-20b: 34.6 (#195), o3-pro: 29.5 (#238)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
GPQA Diamond60.8%—
MMLU-Pro74%—
Confabulations—14.2%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—23.3%
GPQA (HELM)59.4%—
LMArena Expert1258—

Multilingual Not comparable

gpt-oss-20b: 42.2 (#197), o3-pro: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
LMArena Non-English1268—
LMArena Chinese1314—
LMArena German1255—
LMArena Japanese1244—
LMArena Korean1236—
LMArena Russian1278—
LMArena Spanish1267—

Instruction Following Not comparable

gpt-oss-20b: 61.8 (#240), o3-pro: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
IFEval73.2%—
LMArena Instruction Following1236—

Long Context o3-pro leads

gpt-oss-20b: 37.9 (#209), o3-pro: 72.2 (#1)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
Fiction.LiveBench—97.2%
LMArena Longer Query1250—

Writing & Preference o3-pro leads

gpt-oss-20b: 35.5 (#265), o3-pro: 57.1 (#133)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-20bo3-pro
LMArena Text1287—
LMArena Creative Writing1201—
Short-Story Creative Writing—84.4%
EQ-Bench Creative Writing666—
WildBench73.7%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1268—

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-20b better than o3-pro?

o3-pro is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.9 to 32.5 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-20b costs 972× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-pro's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-20b or o3-pro?

gpt-oss-20b is cheaper. It lists at $0.018 per million input tokens and $0.09 per million output tokens; o3-pro lists at $20 and $80.

Is gpt-oss-20b or o3-pro better for coding?

o3-pro scores higher on coding benchmarks: 55.5 versus 37.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

o3-pro does, with 200K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-20b and o3-pro share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-20b has 34 scored results on Noometry and o3-pro has 12.

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