# Phi-4 Mini vs Qwen3-30B-A3B

> Qwen3-30B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-30B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-4-mini-vs-qwen3-30b-a3b
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 2

## Summary

- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi-4 Mini scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3-30B-A3B in 2 categories; 2 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3-30B-A3B leads 41.8 to 25.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 10.8% for Phi-4 Mini and 33.3% for Qwen3-30B-A3B.
- Phi-4 Mini is cheaper at $0.075 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.12 / $0.50 for Qwen3-30B-A3B.
- Phi-4 Mini accepts more context: 128K tokens versus 41K.

## Snapshot

| | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.9 | 38.9 |
| Rank | 283 | 179 |
| Context | 128K | 41K |
| Input $/M | $0.075 | $0.12 |
| Output $/M | $0.30 | $0.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi-4 Mini: 28.1 (#317)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.5 (#194)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 10.8% | 33.3% |
| WeirdML | — | 29.8% |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1416 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 29.8 (#82)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 41.4% |

## Reasoning

- Phi-4 Mini: 22.4 (#195)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 22.2 (#204)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 0.3% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 54.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 8% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1398 |
| DTBench | — | 69.3% |
| LMCA | — | 22.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 139.63 |

## Math

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 37.4 (#157)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 47.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 70.3% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1394 |

## Knowledge

- Phi-4 Mini: 25.3 (#262)
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 41.8 (#105)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 70.1% |
| Confabulations | — | 12.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 23.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1396 |

## Multilingual

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 49.5 (#132)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1372 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1433 |
| LMArena French | — | 1418 |
| LMArena German | — | 1380 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1337 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1331 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1370 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1404 |

## Instruction Following

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 72.0 (#142)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1363 |

## Long Context

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 31.0 (#283)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 40.6% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1379 |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3-30B-A3B: 55.6 (#143)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3-30B-A3B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1384 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1317 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | — | 75.3% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1378 |

## FAQ

### Is Phi-4 Mini better than Qwen3-30B-A3B?

Qwen3-30B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.9 to 30.9 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-30B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Phi-4 Mini or Qwen3-30B-A3B?

Phi-4 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Qwen3-30B-A3B lists at $0.12 and $0.50.

### Is Phi-4 Mini or Qwen3-30B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3-30B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.5 versus 28.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Phi-4 Mini does, with 128K tokens against 41K.

### How many benchmarks do Phi-4 Mini and Qwen3-30B-A3B share?

2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi-4 Mini has 3 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-30B-A3B has 32.