GPT-5.6 Terra vs o4 Mini
Updated October 21, 2026. 74 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
GPT-5.6 Terra and o4 Mini are level for coding, 69.0 against 68.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, so price and context decide.
Pick o4 Mini when output tokens cost 2.7x less. Pick GPT-5.6 Terra when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 200K tokens, or when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 74
- GPT-5.6 Terra only
- 50
- o4 Mini only
- 20
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
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, four public coding benchmarks
No call
Level: 69.0 against 68.6, inside 2 points.
2 benchmarks behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 42.1 against 16.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has a AA Agentic Index result, 43.2.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 90.9% 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 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 86.7% against 80.6%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra leads, 1269 against 985.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
GPT-5.6 Terra
GPT-5.6 Terra takes 1.05M tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
o4 Mini
GPT-5.6 Terra $0.0080, o4 Mini $0.0033 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only GPT-5.6 Terra has the number, $0.42.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- GPT-5.6 Terra 69.0 from 2 benchmarks, o4 Mini 68.6 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Web design, 32.9 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- ARC-AGI-2: GPT-5.6 Terra 83.9% against o4 Mini 6.1%, 77.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- GPT-5.6 Terra $12.00 against o4 Mini $4.40 per million output tokens, 2.7x apart.
- Context window
- GPT-5.6 Terra 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 Terra | Bars | o4 Mini | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 5 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 2 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 15 | 0 | ||
| Math | 5 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 11 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 6 | 0 | ||
| General | 29 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 74 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index50
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | 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 | 86.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1522 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| AA Coding Index | 76.7 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 85.9% | 82.2% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 22.7% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 74.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 47.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 0.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 87.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 77.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 14.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 58.9% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 72.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 85.9% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SciCode | 55.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 62.9% | 15.2% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| FrontierCode | 41.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| GSO-Bench | Not measured | 3.6% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| WeirdML | 78.3% | 52.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| ALE-Bench | 1951.4 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1485 | 1368 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1482 | 1367 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1513 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1526 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1541 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 42.1 | 16.7 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 160.1 | 145.5 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 43.2 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1120 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1061 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1112 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1066 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1082 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1108 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1130 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench research | 60.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench browser | 84.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | 48.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | 9.5% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 54.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 30.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 41.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 66.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 10.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 86.3% | 55.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| APEX-Agents | 58.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| METR time horizons | Not measured | 63.9% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| BALROG | 53.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $7,343 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index150
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 90.9% | 74.5% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LiveBench reasoning | 90.6% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 86.5% | 79.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 92.5% | 78.4% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 42.9% | 16.5% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 93.3% | 79.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| ARC-AGI | 96.5% | 58.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 83.9% | 6.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| SimpleBench | 48.9% | 38.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Chess puzzles | 47.0% | 22.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Mystery game puzzles | 35.0% | 5.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| VPCT | Not measured | 57.5% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1469 | 1351 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1496 | 1343 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1465 | 1366 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1295 | 1197 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1312 | 1234 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index50
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | 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 | 99.7% | 81.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 86.0% | 36.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 70.7% | 4.9% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| ProofBench | 74.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| MATH level 5 | Not measured | 97.8% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1465 | 1389 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1478 | 1379 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| 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 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.7% | 80.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 85.1% | 79.2% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 65.3% | 59.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 76.2% | 74.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.3% | 64.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | Not measured | 96.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 43.4% | 33.8% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 83.2% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 43.2% | 19.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| GeoBench | Not measured | 64.0% | Only o4 Mini measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1452 | 1354 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1430 | 1361 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1461 | 1350 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1448 | 1325 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| 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 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1269 | 985 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1259 | 983 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1230 | 1004 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1240 | 990 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1135 | 854 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1241 | 977 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1220 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1177 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LiveBench design | 76.0% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index290
| Benchmark | GPT-5.6 Terra | o4 Mini | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 79.3% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 62.4% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 47.0% | 41.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 82.9% | 69.1% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 65.1% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| IFBench | 71.2% | 68.7% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 83.0% | 61.0% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| DTBench | 93.3% | 77.6% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMCA | 54.9% | 26.5% | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| 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 | 83.8% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| Furniture assembly | 54.2% | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra measured |
| LMArena Text | 1448 | 1353 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1456 | 1320 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1413 | 1294 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision | 1271 | 1194 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: English | 1449 | 1367 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1441 | 1337 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1514 | 1354 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: German | 1460 | 1336 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1454 | 1308 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1427 | 1312 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: French | 1466 | 1364 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1451 | 1346 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1452 | 1334 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1446 | 1358 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1453 | 1350 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1454 | 1315 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1431 | 1316 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1418 | 1308 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1272 | 1200 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1337 | 1218 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1278 | 1197 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1236 | 1199 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| 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 | 1248 | 1166 | GPT-5.6 Terra |
| LMArena Document | 1472 | Not measured | Only GPT-5.6 Terra 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 Terra | 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
o4 Mini costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
o4 Mini costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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 Terra | 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 | $2.00 | $1.10 |
| Output $/Mtok | $12.00 | $4.40 |
| Coding index | 69.0 | 68.6 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.42 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is GPT-5.6 Terra better than o4 Mini for coding?
GPT-5.6 Terra and o4 Mini are level for coding, 69.0 against 68.6 on the Vibe Coding Index, so price and context decide. Pick o4 Mini when output tokens cost 2.7x less. Pick GPT-5.6 Terra when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 200K tokens, or when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Terra or o4 Mini?
GPT-5.6 Terra costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $12.00 per million output tokens; o4 Mini costs $1.10 and $4.40. Cost per solved task is known for GPT-5.6 Terra only.
Which has the bigger context window, GPT-5.6 Terra or o4 Mini?
GPT-5.6 Terra, with 1.05M tokens against 200K.
How many benchmarks is the GPT-5.6 Terra vs o4 Mini comparison based on?
74 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. GPT-5.6 Terra's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and o4 Mini's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.