Head-to-head comparison
Phi 3 medium 4k instruct (Microsoft) and Phi 3 small 8k instruct (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 7 November 2026
As of 7 November 2026, Phi 3 medium 4k instruct holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#319 vs #338).
Evidence: 2 public benchmark observations across 2 boards · 2 public benchmark observations across 2 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 3 medium 4k instruct ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 7 November 2026: #319 against #338. 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. Their published uncertainty intervals overlap, so the rank difference alone does not establish a reliable capability advantage for your workload.
At least one of the two has no listed API price on ModelCap right now, so no price comparison is made.
Phi 3 medium 4k instruct: context unknown. Phi 3 small 8k instruct: context unknown. OpenRouter catalogue or provider-endpoint declaration. Limits can vary by provider and prompt length; a model-wide maximum has not been independently verified.
Arena coding: Phi 3 medium 4k instruct 1231, Phi 3 small 8k instruct 1205 — Phi 3 medium 4k instruct leads.
Phi 3 medium 4k instruct: Open weights. Phi 3 small 8k instruct: Open weights. Open weights mean the checkpoint can be downloaded and self-hosted under its licence. A missing weight link does not identify every API or chat product that offers a model.
ModelCap currently lists 0 API providers for Phi 3 medium 4k instruct and 0 for Phi 3 small 8k instruct, from the OpenRouter catalogue snapshot the site serves; each model page lists the providers and their prices.
Every figure and ModelCap Index position comes from the same published snapshot dated 7 November 2026. Publication and page updates happen separately; use the snapshot date shown on the page.