Head-to-head comparison
Phi 3 medium 4k instruct (Microsoft) 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 7 November 2026
As of 7 November 2026, Phi 4 holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#290 vs #319).
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.
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Phi 4 ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 7 November 2026: #290 against #319. 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 4: 16K-token context. 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 4 1306 — Phi 4 leads.
Phi 3 medium 4k instruct: Open weights. Phi 4: 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 1 for Phi 4, 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.