o4-mini vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
OpenAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
o4-mini outperforms in 1 benchmarks (Aider-Polyglot), while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (SWE-Bench Verified, TAU-bench Airline, TAU-bench Retail). Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose o4-mini
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Apr 2025
Choose Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 4 shared benchmarks
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
o4-mini outperforms in 1 benchmarks (Aider-Polyglot), while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (SWE-Bench Verified, TAU-bench Airline, TAU-bench Retail).
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only o4-mini specifies input context (200,000 tokens). Only o4-mini specifies output context (100,000 tokens).
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
o4-mini supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct does not.
o4-mini can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
o4-mini
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
o4-mini is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
o4-mini was released on 2025-04-16, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct was released on 2025-01-31.
o4-mini is 3 months newer than Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.
Apr 16, 2025
1.4 years ago
2mo newerJan 31, 2025
1.6 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
o4-mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-05-31, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm o4-mini's training data extends to 2024-05-31, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date.
May 2024
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Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against o4-mini and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about o4-mini vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.