Jamba 1.5 MinivsGPT-4o
AI21 Labs vs OpenAI — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | Jamba 1.5 Mini | GPT-4o |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Arena Rank | — | #2 |
| Context Window | 256K | 128K |
| Input Pricing | $0.20/1M tokens | $2.50/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | $0.40/1M tokens | $10.00/1M tokens |
| Parameters | 52B (12B active) | ~200B (est.) |
| Open Source | Yes | No |
| Best For | Cost-effective long-context, summarization | General purpose, coding, analysis |
| Release Date | Aug 22, 2024 | — |
Jamba 1.5 Mini
Jamba 1.5 Mini is AI21 Labs' efficient model sharing the same hybrid SSM-Transformer architecture as its larger sibling. At 52 billion total parameters with only 12 billion active, it delivers strong performance on long-context tasks while being highly cost-effective. The 256K context window combined with low inference costs makes it particularly attractive for applications processing large volumes of documents.
View AI21 Labs profile →GPT-4o
GPT-4o is OpenAI's flagship multimodal model, capable of processing text, images, and audio in a unified architecture. The 'o' stands for 'omni,' reflecting its ability to seamlessly handle multiple input types. With a 128K token context window and competitive pricing, it strikes an optimal balance between capability and cost-effectiveness. GPT-4o delivers fast response times while maintaining strong performance across coding, analysis, creative writing, and visual understanding tasks. It powers ChatGPT's default experience and is one of the most widely deployed AI models globally, serving millions of API calls daily. The model supports function calling, JSON mode, and structured outputs, making it highly versatile for production applications. Its combination of speed, quality, and multimodal capabilities makes it the go-to choice for most general-purpose AI applications.
View OpenAI profile →Key Differences: Jamba 1.5 Mini vs GPT-4o
Jamba 1.5 Mini is 20.8x cheaper on average, making it the better choice for high-volume applications.
Jamba 1.5 Mini supports a larger context window (256K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
Jamba 1.5 Mini is open-source (free to self-host and fine-tune) while GPT-4o is proprietary (API-only access).
Jamba 1.5 Mini has 52B (12B active) parameters vs GPT-4o's ~200B (est.), which affects inference speed and capability.
When to use Jamba 1.5 Mini
- +Budget is a concern and you need cost efficiency
- +You need to process long documents (256K context)
- +You need to self-host or fine-tune the model
- +Your use case involves cost-effective long-context, summarization
When to use GPT-4o
- +Quality matters more than cost
- +You prefer a managed API without infrastructure overhead
- +Your use case involves general purpose, coding, analysis
Cost Analysis
At current pricing, Jamba 1.5 Mini is 20.8x more affordable than GPT-4o. For a typical enterprise workload processing 100M tokens per month:
Jamba 1.5 Mini monthly cost
$30
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
GPT-4o monthly cost
$625
100M tokens/mo (50/50 in/out)
The Verdict
Jamba 1.5 Mini wins our head-to-head comparison with 3 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for cost-effective long-context, summarization, though GPT-4o holds an edge in general purpose, coding, analysis.
Last compared: March 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages