Phi-3 MinivsPhi-4
Microsoft vs Microsoft — Side-by-side model comparison
Head-to-Head Comparison
| Metric | Phi-3 Mini | Phi-4 |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | ||
| Arena Rank | — | #28 |
| Context Window | 128K | 16K |
| Input Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | Free/1M tokens |
| Output Pricing | Free (open)/1M tokens | Free/1M tokens |
| Parameters | 3.8B | 14B |
| Open Source | Yes | Yes |
| Best For | Edge deployment, mobile, on-device AI | Small model research, edge deployment, reasoning |
| Release Date | Apr 23, 2024 | Dec 12, 2024 |
Phi-3 Mini
Phi-3 Mini is Microsoft's compact 3.8 billion parameter model that delivers surprisingly strong performance for its size, rivaling models many times larger on reasoning and coding benchmarks. It features a 128K context window despite its small size, making it ideal for on-device deployment in mobile phones, laptops, and edge devices where computational resources are severely constrained.
View Microsoft profile →Phi-4
Phi-4 is Microsoft's small language model that demonstrates remarkable capability relative to its size, embodying the 'small but mighty' approach to AI. Through innovative training on high-quality synthetic and curated data, Phi-4 achieves performance comparable to much larger models on reasoning, coding, and STEM tasks. As an open-source model, it's ideal for on-device deployment, edge computing, and applications requiring local AI processing without cloud connectivity. Phi-4 has been influential in proving that model quality depends more on data quality and training methodology than raw parameter count.
View Microsoft profile →Key Differences: Phi-3 Mini vs Phi-4
Phi-3 Mini supports a larger context window (128K), allowing it to process longer documents in a single request.
Phi-3 Mini has 3.8B parameters vs Phi-4's 14B, which affects inference speed and capability.
When to use Phi-3 Mini
- +You need to process long documents (128K context)
- +Your use case involves edge deployment, mobile, on-device ai
When to use Phi-4
- +Your use case involves small model research, edge deployment, reasoning
The Verdict
Phi-4 wins our head-to-head comparison with 4 out of 5 category wins. It's the stronger choice for small model research, edge deployment, reasoning, though Phi-3 Mini holds an edge in edge deployment, mobile, on-device ai.
Last compared: March 2026 · Data sourced from public benchmarks and official pricing pages