Mercury 3 vs Phi 4 Reasoning Plus
Mercury 3 leads the LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 14.5.
Inception · Microsoft · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Mercury 3 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 36.1 to 14.5, 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 and coding — 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 Reasoning Plus
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Individual benchmarks
12 reported for Mercury 3 · 11 for Phi 4 Reasoning Plus
Mercury 3 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Phi 4 Reasoning Plus is better at 0 benchmarks.
Mercury 3 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
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).
License
Usage and distribution terms
Mercury 3 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Phi 4 Reasoning Plus uses MIT.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
MIT
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Mercury 3 was released on 2026-10-19, while Phi 4 Reasoning Plus was released on 2025-04-30.
Mercury 3 is 18 months newer than Phi 4 Reasoning Plus.
Oct 19, 2026
0 days ago
1.5yr newerApr 30, 2025
1.5 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Phi 4 Reasoning Plus has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-03-01, while Mercury 3's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Phi 4 Reasoning Plus's training data extends to 2025-03-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Mercury 3's cutoff date.
—
Mar 2025
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Mercury 3 and Phi 4 Reasoning Plus side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Mercury 3 vs Phi 4 Reasoning Plus.