The AI arena is free today

Open Superagent

Phi 4 Mini vs Qwen2 7B Instruct

Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct are closely matched at -4.1 and -4.5 on the LLM Stats Score.

Microsoft · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at -4.1 and -4.5.

In the 5 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Phi 4 Mini wins 3; 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 Phi 4 Mini

  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 5 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Feb 2025

Choose Qwen2 7B Instruct

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Phi 4 Mini
Microsoft
Qwen2 7B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
-4.1
#347
-4.5
#348
Reasoning
-4.2
#340
-4.2
#341
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
3 of 5
2 of 5
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

3 shared
Index
Phi 4 Mini
Qwen2 7B Instruct
Math
2.3#293
-1.5#303
Finance
1.1#192
-4.7#215
Legal
1.1#179
-3.6#192
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

17 reported for Phi 4 Mini · 14 for Qwen2 7B Instruct

5 shared

Phi 4 Mini outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GSM8k, MATH, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2 7B Instruct is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU).

Phi 4 Mini has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

3.8B diff

Qwen2 7B Instruct has 3.8B more parameters than Phi 4 Mini, making it 98.4% larger.

Microsoft
Phi 4 Mini
3.8Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 7B Instruct
7.6Bparameters
3.8B
Phi 4 Mini
7.6B
Qwen2 7B Instruct

License

Usage and distribution terms

Phi 4 Mini is licensed under MIT, while Qwen2 7B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

Phi 4 Mini

MIT

Open weights

Qwen2 7B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Phi 4 Mini was released on 2025-02-01, while Qwen2 7B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.

Phi 4 Mini is 6 months newer than Qwen2 7B Instruct.

Phi 4 Mini

Feb 1, 2025

1.6 years ago

6mo newer
Qwen2 7B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.2 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Phi 4 Mini has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-06-01, while Qwen2 7B Instruct'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 Qwen2 7B Instruct's cutoff date.

Phi 4 Mini

Jun 2024

Qwen2 7B Instruct

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Phi 4 Mini
✓ Preferred
Qwen2 7B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Phi 4 Mini vs Qwen2 7B Instruct.

Which is better, Phi 4 Mini or Qwen2 7B Instruct?

Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at -4.1 and -4.5. Phi 4 Mini is made by Microsoft and Qwen2 7B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Phi 4 Mini compare to Qwen2 7B Instruct in benchmarks?

Phi 4 Mini scores GSM8k: 88.6%, ARC-C: 83.7%, BoolQ: 81.2%, OpenBookQA: 79.2%, PIQA: 77.6%. Qwen2 7B Instruct scores MT-Bench: 84.1%, GSM8k: 82.3%, HumanEval: 79.9%, C-Eval: 77.2%, AlignBench: 72.1%.

What are the main differences between Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (-4.1 vs -4.5), licensing (MIT vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Phi 4 Mini and Qwen2 7B Instruct?

Phi 4 Mini is developed by Microsoft and Qwen2 7B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

Related comparisons