o3 Mini alternatives
Match · Updated July 2026
The closest alternative to o3 Mini is Kimi K2 0711 — comparable intelligence (19.4 vs 19.0); for a cheaper option, GPT-5.6 Terra runs $1.00/M vs $1.10/M; and the best open-weight substitute is Kimi K3.
Closest match
Cheaper alternatives
gpt-5.6-terra
$1.00/M input · 55.0 intel
claude-sonnet-5:batch
$1.00/M input · 53.4 intel
gpt-5.6-luna
$0.100/M input · 51.2 intel
glm-5.2
$0.966/M input · 51.1 intel
gemini-3.5-flash:batch
$0.750/M input · 50.2 intel
gemini-3.6-flash:batch
$0.750/M input · 50.1 intel
Smarter alternatives
Open-source alternatives
kimi-k3
57.1 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
glm-5.2
51.1 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
minimax-m3
44.4 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
minimax-m3:batch
44.4 intel · open weights · 524K ctx
deepseek-v4-pro
44.3 intel · open weights · 1.0M ctx
kimi-k2.6
44.2 intel · open weights · 262K ctx
Frequently asked
What is the best alternative to o3 Mini?
Kimi K2 0711 is the closest alternative to o3 Mini, with an Intelligence Index of 19.4 (o3 Mini scores 19.0) at $0.570 per million input tokens.
Is there a cheaper alternative to o3 Mini?
Yes — GPT-5.6 Terra costs $1.00 per million input tokens versus $1.10 for o3 Mini, while staying within ~8 points of its Intelligence Index.
Is there an open-source alternative to o3 Mini?
Kimi K3 is the strongest open-weight alternative to o3 Mini — downloadable from Hugging Face and self-hostable, scoring 57.1 on intelligence.