o3-mini vs Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

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

o3-mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 56 to 39. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

o3-mini's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 82.1 against 34. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 86.9 to 38.

Quick Verdict

Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking only becomes the better choice if its workflow or ecosystem matters more than the raw scoreboard.

Knowledge

o3-mini

o3-mini

82.1

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

34

86.9
MMLU
38
77.2
GPQA
37
-
SuperGPQA
35
-
OpenBookQA
33
-
MMLU-Pro
53
-
HLE
8

Coding

o3-mini

o3-mini

49.3

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

21.7

49.3
SWE-bench Verified
20
-
HumanEval
30
-
LiveCodeBench
15

Mathematics

o3-mini

o3-mini

87.3

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

40.1

87.3
AIME 2024
40
-
AIME 2023
38
-
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

o3-mini

o3-mini

93.9

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking

66

93.9
IFEval
66

Multilingual

Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking
-
MGSM
60

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o3-mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

o3-mini is ahead overall, 56 to 39. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 86.9 and 38.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o3-mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 34. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, o3-mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 49.3 versus 21.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o3-mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

o3-mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.3 versus 40.1. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, o3-mini or Claude 4.1 Opus Thinking?

o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 66. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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