o3-mini vs Seed 1.6 Flash

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

o3-mini is clearly ahead on the aggregate, 71 to 56. 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 coding, where it averages 55.6 against 27.6. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Pro, 57 to 31.

o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.08 input / $0.30 output per 1M tokens for Seed 1.6 Flash. That is roughly 14.7x on output cost alone. Seed 1.6 Flash gives you the larger context window at 256K, compared with 200K for o3-mini.

Quick Verdict

Pick o3-mini if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Seed 1.6 Flash only becomes the better choice if you want the cheaper token bill or you need the larger 256K context window.

Agentic

o3-mini

o3-mini

66.6

Seed 1.6 Flash

54.5

67
Terminal-Bench 2.0
52
74
BrowseComp
62
61
OSWorld-Verified
52

Coding

o3-mini

o3-mini

55.6

Seed 1.6 Flash

27.6

49.3
SWE-bench Verified
24
57
SWE-bench Pro
31
Coming soon
HumanEval
59
Coming soon
LiveCodeBench
25

Multimodal & Grounded

o3-mini

o3-mini

74.4

Seed 1.6 Flash

73.1

73
MMMU-Pro
74
76
OfficeQA Pro
72

Reasoning

o3-mini

o3-mini

81.1

Seed 1.6 Flash

66.8

82
LongBench v2
70
80
MRCRv2
74
Coming soon
SimpleQA
61
Coming soon
MuSR
59
Coming soon
BBH
75

Knowledge

o3-mini

o3-mini

70.8

Seed 1.6 Flash

47.3

86.9
MMLU
65
77.2
GPQA
64
66
FrontierScience
57
Coming soon
SuperGPQA
62
Coming soon
OpenBookQA
60
Coming soon
MMLU-Pro
65
Coming soon
HLE
3

Instruction Following

o3-mini

o3-mini

93.9

Seed 1.6 Flash

81

93.9
IFEval
81

Multilingual

o3-mini

o3-mini

73

Seed 1.6 Flash

72.8

73
MMLU-ProX
71
Coming soon
MGSM
76

Mathematics

o3-mini

o3-mini

87.3

Seed 1.6 Flash

67.1

87.3
AIME 2024
66
Coming soon
AIME 2023
64
Coming soon
AIME 2025
65
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2023
60
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2024
62
Coming soon
HMMT Feb 2025
61
Coming soon
BRUMO 2025
63
Coming soon
MATH-500
72

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini is ahead overall, 71 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Pro, where the scores are 57 and 31.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 70.8 versus 47.3. Inside this category, MMLU is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 55.6 versus 27.6. Inside this category, SWE-bench Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 87.3 versus 67.1. Inside this category, AIME 2024 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for reasoning, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for reasoning in this comparison, averaging 81.1 versus 66.8. Inside this category, LongBench v2 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for agentic tasks, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 66.6 versus 54.5. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multimodal and grounded tasks, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for multimodal and grounded tasks in this comparison, averaging 74.4 versus 73.1. Inside this category, OfficeQA Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for instruction following, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 93.9 versus 81. Inside this category, IFEval is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for multilingual tasks, o3-mini or Seed 1.6 Flash?

o3-mini has the edge for multilingual tasks in this comparison, averaging 73 versus 72.8. Inside this category, MMLU-ProX is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Last updated: March 12, 2026

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