o3-mini vs Llama 4 Scout

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

o3-mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 56 to 42. 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 38.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is MMLU, 86.9 to 47.

o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Llama 4 Scout. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. o3-mini is the reasoning model in the pair, while Llama 4 Scout 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. Llama 4 Scout gives you the larger context window at 10M, compared with 200K for o3-mini.

Quick Verdict

Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Llama 4 Scout only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 10M context window.

Knowledge

o3-mini

o3-mini

82.1

Llama 4 Scout

38.7

86.9
MMLU
47
77.2
GPQA
46
-
SuperGPQA
44
-
OpenBookQA
42
-
MMLU-Pro
51
-
HLE
2

Coding

o3-mini

o3-mini

49.3

Llama 4 Scout

20.7

49.3
SWE-bench Verified
12
-
HumanEval
39
-
LiveCodeBench
11

Mathematics

o3-mini

o3-mini

87.3

Llama 4 Scout

47.4

87.3
AIME 2024
49
-
AIME 2023
47
-
AIME 2025
48
-
HMMT Feb 2023
43
-
HMMT Feb 2024
45
-
HMMT Feb 2025
44
-
BRUMO 2025
46
-
MATH-500
57

Reasoning

Llama 4 Scout
-
SimpleQA
45
-
MuSR
43
-
BBH
60

Instruction Following

o3-mini

o3-mini

93.9

Llama 4 Scout

68

93.9
IFEval
68

Multilingual

Llama 4 Scout
-
MGSM
63

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o3-mini or Llama 4 Scout?

o3-mini is ahead overall, 56 to 42. The biggest single separator in this matchup is MMLU, where the scores are 86.9 and 47.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o3-mini or Llama 4 Scout?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 82.1 versus 38.7. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, o3-mini or Llama 4 Scout?

o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 49.3 versus 20.7. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o3-mini or Llama 4 Scout?

o3-mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.3 versus 47.4. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, o3-mini or Llama 4 Scout?

o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 68. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 9, 2026

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