The closest alternative to gpt-oss-20b is Nova 2 Lite — comparable intelligence (24.6 vs 24.5); for a cheaper option, Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) runs Free/M vs $0.029/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 554 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Nova 2 Lite is the closest alternative to gpt-oss-20b, with an Intelligence Index of 24.6 (gpt-oss-20b scores 24.5) at $0.300 per million input tokens.
Yes — Nemotron 3 Ultra (free) costs Free per million input tokens versus $0.029 for gpt-oss-20b, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to gpt-oss-20b — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.