The closest alternative to o3 is Ring-2.6-1T — comparable intelligence (38.5 vs 38.4); for a cheaper option, Qwen3.7 Max runs $1.25/M vs $2.00/M; for more speed, gpt-oss-120b (free) hits 503 t/s; and the best open-weight substitute is MiniMax M3.
Ring-2.6-1T is the closest alternative to o3, with an Intelligence Index of 38.5 (o3 scores 38.4) at $0.075 per million input tokens.
Yes — Qwen3.7 Max costs $1.25 per million input tokens versus $2.00 for o3, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
MiniMax M3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to o3 — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 54.7 on intelligence.