Phi 4 Reasoning vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Phi 4 Reasoning and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking are closely matched at 12.0 and 12.9 on the LLM Stats Score.
Microsoft · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Phi 4 Reasoning and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 12.0 and 12.9.
In the 4 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Phi 4 Reasoning 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 Reasoning
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 3 of 4 exact shared results
Choose Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
11 reported for Phi 4 Reasoning · 48 for Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Phi 4 Reasoning outperforms in 3 benchmarks (GPQA, IFEval, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is better at 1 benchmark (AIME 2025).
Phi 4 Reasoning shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Phi 4 Reasoning has 10.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking, making it 250.0% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking specifies output context (262,144 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas Phi 4 Reasoning does not.
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Phi 4 Reasoning
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
License
Usage and distribution terms
Phi 4 Reasoning is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Phi 4 Reasoning was released on 2025-04-30, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is 5 months newer than Phi 4 Reasoning.
Apr 30, 2025
1.4 years ago
Sep 22, 2025
12 months ago
4mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Phi 4 Reasoning has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2025-03-01, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm Phi 4 Reasoning's training data extends to 2025-03-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking's cutoff date.
Mar 2025
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Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Phi 4 Reasoning and Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Phi 4 Reasoning vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking.