GPT-4o mini vs Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

Side-by-side benchmark comparison across knowledge, coding, math, and reasoning.

GPT-4o mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 43 to 39. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-4o mini's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 87.2 against 21.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 87.2 to 30.

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-4o mini is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking gives you the larger context window at 200K, compared with 128K for GPT-4o mini.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-4o mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 200K context window or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Knowledge

GPT-4o mini

GPT-4o mini

82

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

34

82
MMLU
38
-
GPQA
37
-
SuperGPQA
35
-
OpenBookQA
33
-
MMLU-Pro
53
-
HLE
8

Coding

GPT-4o mini

GPT-4o mini

87.2

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

21.7

87.2
HumanEval
30
-
SWE-bench Verified
20
-
LiveCodeBench
15

Mathematics

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
-
AIME 2023
38
-
AIME 2024
40
-
AIME 2025
39
-
HMMT Feb 2023
34
-
HMMT Feb 2024
36
-
HMMT Feb 2025
35
-
BRUMO 2025
37
-
MATH-500
62

Reasoning

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
-
SimpleQA
36
-
MuSR
34
-
BBH
67

Instruction Following

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
-
IFEval
66

Multilingual

GPT-4o mini

GPT-4o mini

87

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

60

87
MGSM
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-4o mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-4o mini is ahead overall, 43 to 39. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 87.2 and 30.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-4o mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-4o mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82 versus 34. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-4o mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-4o mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 87.2 versus 21.7. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-4o mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

GPT-4o mini has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 87 versus 60. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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