Command R (08-2024) vs Phi-3.5 Medium
A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.
- PriceCommand R (08-2024)
Command R (08-2024) publishes pricing ($0.60 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-3.5 Medium does not.
- Context windowTie
Both ship a 128K-token context window.
- BenchmarksTie
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.
- ModalitiesTie
Both handle text.
- OpennessTie
Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
On balance Command R (08-2024) edges ahead, winning 1 of 5 categories against Phi-3.5 Medium's 0. Command R (08-2024) publishes pricing ($0.60 / 1M output tokens) while Phi-3.5 Medium does not. Both ship a 128K-token context window.
No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores. Both target the same set of modalities (text), so the deciding factors are price, context, and raw quality. Both ship open weights, self-host either one.
Both shipped within roughly a month of each other in 2024, so they share the same generation of training data and tooling. Command R (08-2024) is usually picked for rag and multilingual workloads, while Phi-3.5 Medium sees more deployments in on device and edge deployment. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | Command R (08-2024) | Phi-3.5 Medium |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Cohere | Microsoft |
| Released | Aug 2024 | Aug 2024 |
| Modalities | text | text |
| Context window | 128K tokens | 128K tokens |
| Max output | , | , |
| Input · 1M | $0.15 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Output · 1M | $0.60 / 1M tokens | Pricing not published |
| Knowledge cutoff | , | , |
| Open weights | Yes (CC-BY-NC 4.0) | Yes (MIT) |
| API available | Yes | Yes |
Pricing at scale
What you'd actually pay at typical workloads. Numbers come from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day$1.35 vs ,
- Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$13.50 vs ,
- RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$26.10 vs ,
Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates). RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: pricing not directly comparable (one or both models are missing public per-token rates).
Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.
- Command R (08-2024)$0.045
- Phi-3.5 MediumPricing unavailable
Benchmarks compared
Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.
- MMLU,78.9
Command R (08-2024) fits when…
- Improved tool-use
- Strong multilingual
Phi-3.5 Medium fits when…
- MIT license
- 128k context
- Strong reasoning at 14B
Consider Command R+ (08-2024)
Cohere's flagship optimized for RAG and tool use in enterprise settings.
Frequently asked
Is Command R (08-2024) or Phi-3.5 Medium cheaper?
Per-token pricing isn't published for at least one of these models, check each model's spec page for current rates.Which has the larger context window?
Both Command R (08-2024) and Phi-3.5 Medium ship a 128K-token context window.Is Command R (08-2024) or Phi-3.5 Medium better for coding?
Both Command R (08-2024) and Phi-3.5 Medium are competitive on coding benchmarks. See each model's individual spec page for HumanEval and SWE-bench scores where published. For an opinionated pick, consult our Best LLM for Coding ranking.Are either of these models open source?
Both ship with open weights. Command R (08-2024) is licensed under CC-BY-NC 4.0; Phi-3.5 Medium under MIT.When were Command R (08-2024) and Phi-3.5 Medium released?
Command R (08-2024) was released by Cohere on 2024-08-30. Phi-3.5 Medium was released by Microsoft on 2024-08-20.
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