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Mercury 3 vs Phi 4 Mini

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -4.5.

Inception · Microsoft · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -4.5, ranking #98 overall.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Mercury 3 wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Mercury 3

  • overall performance matters — it scores 36.1 and ranks #98 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026

Choose Phi 4 Mini

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Mercury 3
Inception
Phi 4 Mini
Microsoft
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
36.1
#98
-4.5
#373
Reasoning
34.8
#103
-4.6
#366
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 1
0 of 1
Input price
$0.10 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.35 / M
— / M
Context window
1,000,000
—

Individual benchmarks

12 reported for Mercury 3 · 17 for Phi 4 Mini

1 shared

Mercury 3 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Phi 4 Mini is better at 0 benchmarks.

Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mercury 3 specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Mercury 3 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

Inception
Mercury 3
Input1,000,000 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Microsoft
Phi 4 Mini
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Fri Oct 23 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Phi 4 Mini uses MIT.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Mercury 3

Proprietary

Closed source

Phi 4 Mini

MIT

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Phi 4 Mini was released on 2025-02-01.

Mercury 3 is 21 months newer than Phi 4 Mini.

Mercury 3

Oct 19, 2026

1 days ago

1.7yr newer
Phi 4 Mini

Feb 1, 2025

1.7 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Phi 4 Mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while Mercury 3's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Phi 4 Mini's training data extends to 2024-06-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mercury 3's cutoff date.

Mercury 3

—

Phi 4 Mini

Jun 2024

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Phi 4 Mini side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 3
✓ Preferred
Phi 4 Mini
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Phi 4 Mini.

Which is better, Mercury 3 or Phi 4 Mini?

Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to -4.5. Mercury 3 is made by Inception and Phi 4 Mini is made by Microsoft. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Mercury 3 compare to Phi 4 Mini in benchmarks?

Mercury 3 scores GPQA: 89.2%, AA-LCR: 77.7%, IFBench: 76.8%, MRCR v2: 75.5%, DeepSearchQA: 71.3%. Phi 4 Mini scores GSM8k: 88.6%, ARC-C: 83.7%, BoolQ: 81.2%, OpenBookQA: 79.2%, PIQA: 77.6%.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 3 and Phi 4 Mini?

Mercury 3 supports 1.0M tokens and Phi 4 Mini supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Mercury 3 and Phi 4 Mini?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (36.1 vs -4.5), licensing (Proprietary vs MIT). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 3 and Phi 4 Mini?

Mercury 3 is developed by Inception and Phi 4 Mini is developed by Microsoft.

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