Head-to-head comparison
Command R (08-2024) (Cohere) and Phi 4 (Microsoft) compared on the ModelCap Index, API price, context window, provider availability, weight access and every public benchmark board they share. Figures are the same ones shown on the live rankings; nothing here is a hidden score.
Snapshot as of 17 August 2026
As of 17 August 2026, Phi 4 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#197 vs #199); Phi 4 is 4.3× cheaper per output token ($0.14/1M vs $0.60/1M); Command R (08-2024) offers the longer context window (128K vs 16K tokens); and Phi 4 ships open weights.
Evidence: 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards · 3 public benchmark observations across 3 boards. Prices are the lowest listed API offer per million tokens observed on the OpenRouter catalogue.
Scores are the sources' own published figures for each model's best evaluated configuration; ModelCap never re-runs a benchmark.
Want a different pairing? Open the interactive comparison tool to swap either model for any current ranked language model.
Phi 4 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 17 August 2026: #197 against #199. That is a capability ranking built from public benchmark evidence with published uncertainty; whether it is "better" for you also depends on price, context and where you can run it.
Phi 4 is cheaper on output tokens: $0.14/1M against $0.60/1M. Input tokens are $0.15/1M for Command R (08-2024) and $0.07/1M for Phi 4. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens.
Command R (08-2024) has the larger context window: 128K tokens against 16K.
Arena coding: Command R (08-2024) 1281, Phi 4 1306 — Phi 4 leads.
Command R (08-2024): API only. Phi 4: Open weights. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence; API-only models are available solely through hosted endpoints.
ModelCap currently lists 1 API provider for Command R (08-2024) and 1 for Phi 4, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.
Every figure comes from the sealed ModelCap dataset published 17 August 2026; the page re-renders within a minute of each data refresh, and the ModelCap Index positions are the same ones shown on the live rankings.