The closest alternative to R1 is Mistral Medium 3 — comparable intelligence (18.8 vs 18.8); for a cheaper option, MiniMax M3 runs $0.300/M vs $0.700/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Mistral Medium 3 is the closest alternative to R1, with an Intelligence Index of 18.8 (R1 scores 18.8) at $0.400 per million input tokens.
Yes — MiniMax M3 costs $0.300 per million input tokens versus $0.700 for R1, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to R1 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.