OpenAI o4-mini vs Qwen3-Coder-Next
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
OpenAI · Apr 2025
A compact reasoning model that punched far above its price on math — 92.7% on AIME 2025 at $1.10 per million input tokens.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Feb 2026
The 2026 open coding specialist: 70.6% SWE-bench Verified under Apache 2.0 from $0.11 per million input tokens.
The verdict
Qwen3-Coder-Next wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for OpenAI o4-mini. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-Coder-Next works out roughly 6.8x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-Coder-Next also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o4-mini. And Qwen3-Coder-Next is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 0–1
Specs & pricing
| OpenAI o4-mini | Qwen3-Coder-Next | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | 80.9 | — |
| Input price / 1M | $1.1 | $0.11 |
| Output price / 1M | $4.4 | $0.8 |
| Context window | 200K | 262K |
| Max output | 100K | 66K |
| Open weights | no | yes (Apache 2.0) |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text, image | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | May 2024 | Nov 2025 |
| Released | Apr 2025 | Feb 2026 |
| Example monthly cost* | $17.60 | $2.30 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- Qwen3-Coder-Next wins 1 of the 1 benchmarks these models share, against 0 for OpenAI o4-mini. On price the gap is dramatic: Qwen3-Coder-Next works out roughly 6.8x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-Coder-Next also takes 262K of context versus 200K for OpenAI o4-mini. And Qwen3-Coder-Next is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- OpenAI o4-mini costs $1.1/$4.4 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Coder-Next costs $0.11/$0.8. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $17.60 versus $2.30.
- Which model is better for coding, OpenAI o4-mini or Qwen3-Coder-Next?
- On SWE-bench Verified — the standard agentic-coding benchmark — Qwen3-Coder-Next scores 70.6% versus 68.1% for OpenAI o4-mini, making Qwen3-Coder-Next the stronger pick for coding agents.