The closest alternative to GPT-4o-mini is Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite — comparable intelligence (6.9 vs 6.9); for a cheaper option, Hy3 runs $0.132/M vs $0.150/M; and the best open-weight substitute is Kimi K3.
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite is the closest alternative to GPT-4o-mini, with an Intelligence Index of 6.9 (GPT-4o-mini scores 6.9) at $0.100 per million input tokens.
Yes — Hy3 costs $0.132 per million input tokens versus $0.150 for GPT-4o-mini, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
Kimi K3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to GPT-4o-mini — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 57.1 on intelligence.