# Molmo 2 8b vs o3-mini

> Molmo 2 8b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/molmo-2-8b-vs-o3-mini
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Molmo 2 8b scores higher in 1 category and o3-mini in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Molmo 2 8b leads 25.6 to 16.3.
- Molmo 2 8b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) | OpenAI |
| Noometry Index | 39.1 | 36.7 |
| Rank | 174 | 212 |
| Context | — | 200K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.10 |
| Output $/M | — | $4.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Molmo 2 8b: —
- o3-mini: 40.8 (#132)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | — | 60.4% |
| SciCode | — | 39.8% |
| GSO | — | 1.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 43.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | — | 82.7% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1378 |
| CadEval | — | 54% |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Molmo 2 8b: —
- o3-mini: 29.6 (#84)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Cybench | — | 22.5% |

## Reasoning

- Molmo 2 8b: 25.6 (#146)
- o3-mini: 16.3 (#305)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1287 | 1366 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | — | 3% |
| SimpleBench | — | 22.8% |
| ARC-AGI-1 | — | 34.5% |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | — | 89.6% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 7% |
| DTBench | — | 68.8% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | — | 70.6% |
| LMCA | — | 19% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 140.34 |
| ForecastBench | — | 59.6 |
| LiveBench | — | 75.9% |

## Math

- Molmo 2 8b: —
- o3-mini: 28.1 (#244)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.6% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 0% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 76.9% |
| LiveBench Math | — | 77.3% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1396 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 96.5% |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 12.4% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 4.2% |

## Knowledge

- Molmo 2 8b: —
- o3-mini: 38.3 (#146)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 77% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 15.3% |
| Confabulations | — | 17.9% |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1364 |

## Multimodal

- Molmo 2 8b: 30.2 (#112)
- o3-mini: —

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1081 | — |

## Multilingual

- Molmo 2 8b: 42.7 (#190)
- o3-mini: 45.7 (#164)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1276 | 1319 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1379 |
| LMArena French | — | 1334 |
| LMArena German | — | 1303 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1286 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1314 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1304 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1321 |

## Instruction Following

- Molmo 2 8b: 67.0 (#201)
- o3-mini: 75.1 (#72)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1270 | 1337 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | — | 84.4% |

## Long Context

- Molmo 2 8b: —
- o3-mini: 33.8 (#256)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 50% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1343 |

## Writing & Preference

- Molmo 2 8b: 49.4 (#191)
- o3-mini: 50.3 (#182)

| Benchmark | Molmo 2 8b | o3-mini |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1288 | 1337 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1286 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 61.7% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1320 |
| LiveBench Language | — | 50.7% |

## FAQ

### Is Molmo 2 8b better than o3-mini?

Molmo 2 8b is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.1 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index.

### How many benchmarks do Molmo 2 8b and o3-mini share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Molmo 2 8b has 5 scored results on Noometry and o3-mini has 51.