Head-to-head comparison
gpt-oss-120b (OpenAI) and o4 Mini (OpenAI) 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 6 November 2026
As of 6 November 2026, o4 Mini holds the stronger ModelCap Index position (#136 vs #164); gpt-oss-120b is 25× cheaper per output token ($0.088/1M vs $2.20/1M); o4 Mini offers the longer context window (200K vs 131K tokens); and gpt-oss-120b 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.
o4 Mini ranks higher on the ModelCap Index as of 6 November 2026: #136 against #164. 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.
gpt-oss-120b is cheaper on output tokens: $0.088/1M against $2.20/1M. Input tokens are $0.024/1M for gpt-oss-120b and $0.55/1M for o4 Mini. Prices are the lowest listed API offer ModelCap observed, in USD per million tokens. For 1,000 requests with 2,000 input and 500 output tokens each (2M input + 0.5M output), the listed-rate estimate is $0.09 for gpt-oss-120b versus $2.20 for o4 Mini. gpt-oss-120b costs 95.8% less in this scenario. This excludes caching, batch discounts, prompt-length tiers, tool charges and retries; verify the selected endpoint before budgeting.
o4 Mini has the larger context window: 200K tokens against 131K. 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: gpt-oss-120b 1389, o4 Mini 1433 — o4 Mini leads. SWE-bench: gpt-oss-120b 26.0%, o4 Mini 45.0% — o4 Mini leads.
gpt-oss-120b: Open weights. o4 Mini: No linked 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 22 API providers for gpt-oss-120b and 1 for o4 Mini, 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 6 November 2026. Publication and page updates happen separately; use the snapshot date shown on the page.