Model comparison

o3-mini vs Phi-4 Mini

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Phi-4 Mini Microsoft

30.9

Rank #283 Reported

Summary

  • They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 2 categories and Phi-4 Mini in 1 category; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where o3-mini leads 38.3 to 25.3.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 39.8% for o3-mini and 10.8% for Phi-4 Mini.
  • Phi-4 Mini is cheaper at $0.075 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $1.10 / $4.40 for o3-mini.
  • o3-mini accepts more context: 200K tokens versus 128K.
  • Phi-4 Mini has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

o3-mini and Phi-4 Mini specifications
o3-miniPhi-4 Mini
ProviderOpenAIMicrosoft
Noometry Index36.730.9
Released2024-12-202024-12-11
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window200K128K
Max output100K4K
Input $ / M tokens$1.10$0.075
Output $ / M tokens$4.40$0.30
Results tracked513

Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry

Category by category

Coding o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 40.8 (#132), Phi-4 Mini: 28.1 (#317)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
SciCode39.8%10.8%
Aider Polyglot60.4%—
GSO1.3%—
WeirdML43.7%—
LiveBench Coding82.7%—
LMArena Coding1378—
CadEval54%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

o3-mini: 29.6 (#84), Phi-4 Mini: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
Cybench22.5%—

Reasoning Phi-4 Mini leads

o3-mini: 16.3 (#305), Phi-4 Mini: 22.4 (#195)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
CritPt0.3%0%
ARC-AGI-23%—
SimpleBench22.8%—
ARC-AGI-134.5%—
Chess Puzzles17%—
LiveBench Reasoning89.6%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1366—
Mystery Game Puzzles7%—
DTBench68.8%—
LiveBench Data Analysis70.6%—
LMCA19%—
Epoch Capabilities Index140.34—
ForecastBench59.6—
LiveBench75.9%—

Math Not comparable

o3-mini: 28.1 (#244), Phi-4 Mini: —

Knowledge o3-mini leads

o3-mini: 38.3 (#146), Phi-4 Mini: 25.3 (#262)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
GPQA Diamond77%—
SimpleQA Verified15.3%—
Confabulations17.9%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate—23.5%
LMArena Expert1364—

Multilingual Not comparable

o3-mini: 45.7 (#164), Phi-4 Mini: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
LMArena Non-English1319—
LMArena Chinese1379—
LMArena French1334—
LMArena German1303—
LMArena Japanese1286—
LMArena Korean1314—
LMArena Russian1304—
LMArena Spanish1321—

Instruction Following Not comparable

o3-mini: 75.1 (#72), Phi-4 Mini: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
LiveBench Instruction Following84.4%—
LMArena Instruction Following1337—

Long Context Not comparable

o3-mini: 33.8 (#256), Phi-4 Mini: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
Fiction.LiveBench50%—
LMArena Longer Query1343—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

o3-mini: 50.3 (#182), Phi-4 Mini: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniPhi-4 Mini
LMArena Text1337—
LMArena Creative Writing1286—
Short-Story Creative Writing61.7%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1320—
LiveBench Language50.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is o3-mini better than Phi-4 Mini?

o3-mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.7 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 15× less per token, which makes it the better buy when o3-mini's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, o3-mini or Phi-4 Mini?

Phi-4 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; o3-mini lists at $1.10 and $4.40.

Is o3-mini or Phi-4 Mini better for coding?

o3-mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 28.1 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

o3-mini does, with 200K tokens against 128K.

How many benchmarks do o3-mini and Phi-4 Mini share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Phi-4 Mini has 3.

Related comparisons

Go deeper