GPT-OSS 20B vs Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

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

GPT-OSS 20B is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 35 to 31. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

GPT-OSS 20B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 14.5 against 7.2. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 18 to 6. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) does hit back in instruction following, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) is the reasoning model in the pair, while GPT-OSS 20B 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.

Quick Verdict

Pick GPT-OSS 20B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) only becomes the better choice if instruction following is the priority or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Agentic

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

35.4

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

34

35
Terminal-Bench 2.0
33
42
BrowseComp
37
31
OSWorld-Verified
33

Coding

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

14.5

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

7.2

23
HumanEval
16
14
SWE-bench Verified
9
11
LiveCodeBench
8
18
SWE-bench Pro
6

Multimodal & Grounded

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

36

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

30.4

31
MMMU-Pro
25
42
OfficeQA Pro
37

Reasoning

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

40.4

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

35.3

29
SimpleQA
26
27
MuSR
26
62
BBH
63
48
LongBench v2
37
48
MRCRv2
40

Knowledge

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

29

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

25.2

31
MMLU
25
30
GPQA
24
28
SuperGPQA
22
26
OpenBookQA
20
53
MMLU-Pro
49
1
HLE
1
34
FrontierScience
29

Instruction Following

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

GPT-OSS 20B

67

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

68

67
IFEval
68

Multilingual

Tie

GPT-OSS 20B

59.7

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

59.7

61
MGSM
61
59
MMLU-ProX
59

Mathematics

GPT-OSS 20B

GPT-OSS 20B

43.1

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)

40.9

31
AIME 2023
27
33
AIME 2024
29
32
AIME 2025
28
27
HMMT Feb 2023
23
29
HMMT Feb 2024
25
28
HMMT Feb 2025
24
30
BRUMO 2025
26
59
MATH-500
59

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B is ahead overall, 35 to 31. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 18 and 6.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 29 versus 25.2. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 14.5 versus 7.2. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 43.1 versus 40.9. Inside this category, AIME 2023 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 40.4 versus 35.3. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 35.4 versus 34. Inside this category, BrowseComp is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 36 versus 30.4. Inside this category, MMMU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 68 versus 67. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, GPT-OSS 20B or Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning)?

GPT-OSS 20B and Ministral 3 3B (Reasoning) are effectively tied for multilingual tasks here, both landing at 59.7 on average.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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