ModelRefs / Phi-4 vs GPT-5 Mini — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparis…
Phi-4 vs GPT-5 Mini — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparis…
Phi-4 vs GPT-5 Mini: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
GPT-5 Mini: GPT-5 Mini is OpenAI's August 2025 cost-efficient reasoning model for well-defined, latency-sensitive, and high-volume workloads. The API model supports text input and output, image input, configurable reasoning effort, and an immutable gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07 snapshot; OpenAI now classifies it as a previous-generation model.
Phi-4: Microsoft's 14B dense decoder-only open-weight text model, trained on 9.8T tokens with a synthetic-data-centered curriculum and available through the microsoft/phi-4 artifact and Microsoft Foundry.
Context window: GPT-5 Mini accepts up to 400,000 tokens, Phi-4 up to 16,384. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
GPT-5 Mini vs Phi-4 at a glance
| Attribute | GPT-5 Mini | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | OpenAI | Microsoft |
| Released | 2025-08-07 | 2024-12-12 |
| Context window | 400,000 tokens | 16,384 tokens |
| Input price | $0.25/M tokens | Free / self-hosted |
| Output price | $2/M tokens | Free / self-hosted |
| Licence | Proprietary | MIT |
| Self-hostable | No, hosted only | Yes, open weights |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
Benchmarks reported for both
| Benchmark | GPT-5 Mini | Phi-4 | Reported |
|---|---|---|---|
| gpqa | 82.3 | 56.1 | 2025-08-07 / 2024-12-12 |
Scores are as published by their cited sources on the dates shown. Different runs use different harnesses, prompts, and dates, so treat these as directional evidence rather than a head-to-head result.
Where they differ most
- Hallucination Resistance: GPT-5 Mini 99%, Phi-4 3%. GPT-5 Mini leads on this dimension.
- Cost Efficiency: GPT-5 Mini 78%, Phi-4 100%. Phi-4 leads on this dimension.
- Reasoning: GPT-5 Mini 87%, Phi-4 65%. GPT-5 Mini leads on this dimension.
- Instruction Following: GPT-5 Mini 72%, Phi-4 58%. GPT-5 Mini leads on this dimension.
- Coding: GPT-5 Mini 71%, Phi-4 67%. GPT-5 Mini leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to Phi-4 vs GPT-5 Mini — Benchmarks, Pricing & Coding Comparis….
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, Phi-4 or GPT-5 Mini?
Phi-4 and GPT-5 Mini target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is Phi-4 cheaper than GPT-5 Mini?
Compare $0.00000 vs $0.00025 on this page.