GPT-5.6 Sol vs o4 Mini
GPT-5.6 Sol leads o4 Mini on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 47.0 to 16.7, and o4 Mini costs 4.5x less per output token ($4.40 vs $20.00 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 78 benchmarks have a result for both.
vs boards won of 78 shared, 2 tied
GPT-5.6 Sol or o4 Mini: which to pick
Only GPT-5.6 Sol has a coding score, 73.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; o4 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick o4 Mini for output tokens 4.5x cheaper ($4.40 vs $20.00 per million) and work measured by Kagi LLM Benchmark, where it leads.
Model AGPT-5.6 SolOpenAI73.5/1006 independent benchmarks$1.20 per solved taskModel Bo4 MiniOpenAINot benchmarkedNo coding benchmarkNo cost per solved task
- Shared results
- 78
- GPT-5.6 Sol only
- 61
- o4 Mini only
- 20
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Sol has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol leads, 47.0 against 16.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Sol has a AA Agentic Index result, 50.2.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol leads, 95.2% against 74.5%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only o4 Mini has a AIME result, 83.7%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol leads, 89.1% against 80.6%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol leads, 1321 against 985.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-5.6 Sol
GPT-5.6 Sol takes 1.05M tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
o4 Mini
GPT-5.6 Sol $0.014, o4 Mini $0.0033 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Sol has the number, $1.20.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-5.6 Sol 73.5 from 6 benchmarks, o4 Mini not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Web design, 47.5 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI-2: GPT-5.6 Sol 92.5% against o4 Mini 6.1%, 86.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-5.6 Sol $20.00 against o4 Mini $4.40 per million output tokens, 4.5x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-5.6 Sol takes 1.05M tokens, o4 Mini 200K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | GPT-5.6 Sol | Bars | o4 Mini | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 6 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 15 | 1 | ||
| Math | 5 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 11 | 0 | 1 tie | |
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 29 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 75 | 1 | 2 ties |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index60
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | Not measured | 72.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | Not measured | 64.6% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal | Not measured | 33.9% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LiveBench coding | 89.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1616 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| AA Coding Index | 77.4 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 82.6% | 82.2% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 96.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 37.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 80.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 52.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 1.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 91.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 85.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 20.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 54.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 76.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.9% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SciCode | 57.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 65.9% | 15.2% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| FrontierCode | 47.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| FrontierSWE | 32.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| GSO-Bench | 76.5% | 3.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| WeirdML | 88.8% | 52.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| MirrorCode | 20.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| ALE-Bench | 2176.9 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1496 | 1368 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1489 | 1367 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1620 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1618 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1609 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| SciCode | 10.8% | 10.8% | Tie |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 47.0 | 16.7 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 162.8 | 145.5 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 50.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1245 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1261 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1248 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1240 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1260 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1266 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1236 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1215 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveBench research | 54.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveBench browser | 88.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 48.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 30.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 31.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 72.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 71.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 20.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Vals Science Index | 41.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 23.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| CUA-bench (Vals AI) | 8.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 85.1% | 55.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 63.9% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| OSWorld 2.0 | 27.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| BALROG | 60.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| PostTrainBench | 36.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $9,619 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena Search | 1261 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) | Not measured | 53.2% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 11 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index151
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 95.2% | 74.5% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 33.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 88.8% | 79.7% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 94.1% | 78.4% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 49.5% | 16.5% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.5% | 79.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| ARC-AGI | 97.5% | 58.7% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 92.5% | 6.1% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| SimpleBench | 64.8% | 38.7% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Chess puzzles | 59.0% | 22.0% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Mystery game puzzles | 58.0% | 5.0% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| EBR-bench | 44.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| VPCT | Not measured | 57.5% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1483 | 1351 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1517 | 1343 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1477 | 1366 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1305 | 1197 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1305 | 1234 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.0% | 67.6% | o4 Mini |
| Neither model has a result on the other 2 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 83.7% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 94.2% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | Not measured | 93.4% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| AA Math Index | Not measured | 90.7 | Only o4 Mini measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 90.7% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 100.0% | 81.7% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 89.1% | 36.1% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 82.9% | 4.9% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| ProofBench | 83.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| MATH level 5 | Not measured | 97.8% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1473 | 1389 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1496 | 1379 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index110
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.1% | 80.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 87.0% | 79.2% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 64.4% | 59.0% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.8% | 74.8% | Tie |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.3% | 64.8% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 96.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.0% | 33.8% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 83.2% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 69.7% | 19.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| GeoBench | Not measured | 64.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1455 | 1354 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1431 | 1361 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1476 | 1350 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1457 | 1325 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| FACTS Benchmark Suite | 52.4% | 28.1% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index60
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1321 | 985 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1335 | 983 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1367 | 1003 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1322 | 991 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1384 | 854 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1341 | 976 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1314 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1304 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LiveBench design | 81.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index290
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 66.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 52.6% | 41.1% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 85.2% | 69.1% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 72.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| IFBench | 72.7% | 68.7% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 84.0% | 61.0% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| DTBench | 95.7% | 77.6% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMCA | 58.5% | 26.5% | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| Fiction.LiveBench | Not measured | 77.8% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | Not measured | 75.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 93.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Furniture assembly | 56.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| LMArena Text | 1457 | 1353 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1483 | 1320 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1449 | 1294 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision | 1281 | 1194 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: English | 1457 | 1367 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1451 | 1337 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1525 | 1354 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: German | 1476 | 1336 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1472 | 1308 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1442 | 1312 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: French | 1472 | 1364 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1443 | 1346 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1471 | 1334 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1459 | 1358 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1461 | 1350 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1481 | 1315 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1462 | 1316 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1450 | 1308 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1280 | 1200 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1313 | 1218 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1290 | 1197 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1246 | 1199 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | Not measured | 1204 | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | Not measured | 1218 | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1283 | 1166 | GPT-5.6 Sol |
| LMArena Document | 1483 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Sol measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Sol | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
GPT-5.6 Sol$0.014Fits in one request
o4 Mini$0.0033Fits in one request
o4 Mini costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Sol$0.260Fits in one request
o4 Mini$0.068Fits in one request
o4 Mini costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
GPT-5.6 Sol$1.00Fits in one request
o4 Mini$0.264Exceeds the context window
o4 Mini costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol | OpenAI o4 Mini |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | OpenAI |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | July 9, 2026 | April 16, 2025 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 200K |
| Input $/Mtok | $4.00 | $1.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $20.00 | $4.40 |
| Coding index | 73.5 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 6 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.20 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-5.6 Sol better than o4 Mini for coding?
Only GPT-5.6 Sol has a coding score, 73.5 on the Vibe Coding Index; o4 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick o4 Mini for output tokens 4.5x cheaper ($4.40 vs $20.00 per million) and work measured by Kagi LLM Benchmark, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Sol or o4 Mini?
GPT-5.6 Sol costs $4.00 per million input tokens and $20.00 per million output tokens; o4 Mini costs $1.10 and $4.40. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-5.6 Sol only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5.6 Sol or o4 Mini?
GPT-5.6 Sol, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-5.6 Sol vs o4 Mini comparison based on?
78 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. GPT-5.6 Sol's coding index rests on 6 independent benchmarks and o4 Mini's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.