Phi-4 vs DeepSeek V3.1

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

Phi-4 is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 39 to 35. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Phi-4's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 82.6 against 17.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is HumanEval, 82.6 to 25.

DeepSeek V3.1 gives you the larger context window at 128K, compared with 16K for Phi-4.

Quick Verdict

Pick Phi-4 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3.1 only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 128K context window.

Knowledge

Phi-4

Phi-4

70.5

DeepSeek V3.1

29.7

84.8
MMLU
33
56.1
GPQA
32
-
SuperGPQA
30
-
OpenBookQA
28
-
MMLU-Pro
53
-
HLE
2

Coding

Phi-4

Phi-4

82.6

DeepSeek V3.1

17.7

82.6
HumanEval
25
-
SWE-bench Verified
13
-
LiveCodeBench
15

Mathematics

DeepSeek V3.1
-
AIME 2023
33
-
AIME 2024
35
-
AIME 2025
34
-
HMMT Feb 2023
29
-
HMMT Feb 2024
31
-
HMMT Feb 2025
30
-
BRUMO 2025
32
-
MATH-500
59

Reasoning

DeepSeek V3.1
-
SimpleQA
31
-
MuSR
29
-
BBH
61

Instruction Following

DeepSeek V3.1
-
IFEval
67

Multilingual

Phi-4

Phi-4

80.6

DeepSeek V3.1

64

80.6
MGSM
64

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, Phi-4 or DeepSeek V3.1?

Phi-4 is ahead overall, 39 to 35. The biggest single separator in this matchup is HumanEval, where the scores are 82.6 and 25.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Phi-4 or DeepSeek V3.1?

Phi-4 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 70.5 versus 29.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, Phi-4 or DeepSeek V3.1?

Phi-4 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 82.6 versus 17.7. Inside this category, HumanEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, Phi-4 or DeepSeek V3.1?

Phi-4 has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 80.6 versus 64. Inside this category, MGSM is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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