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DBRX 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.

Updated

DBRX specs · Phi-3.5 Medium specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceTie

    Neither model publishes per-token API pricing.

  • Context windowPhi-3.5 Medium

    Phi-3.5 Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 32K, 4.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksPhi-3.5 Medium

    Phi-3.5 Medium leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 78.9 vs 73.7.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both ship open weights, self-host either one.

On balance Phi-3.5 Medium edges ahead, winning 2 of 5 categories against DBRX's 0. Neither model publishes per-token API pricing. Phi-3.5 Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 32K, 4.0× the room for long documents and codebases.

Phi-3.5 Medium leads in 1 of 1 shared benchmarks; the biggest gap is on MMLU (broad academic knowledge), where it scores 78.9 vs 73.7. 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.

Phi-3.5 Medium is the newer of the two, released 5 months after DBRX, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. DBRX is usually picked for enterprise llm and sql generation 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

SpecDBRXPhi-3.5 Medium
ProviderOtherMicrosoft
ReleasedMar 2024Aug 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window32K tokens128K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Output · 1MPricing not publishedPricing not published
Knowledge cutoff,,
Open weightsYes (Databricks Open Model License)Yes (MIT)
API availableYesYes

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, vs ,
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day, vs ,
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day, 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).

Price calculator

Estimated spend for the listed models at your usage. Numbers are derived from each model's published per-million-token rates.

  • DBRXPricing unavailable
  • 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.

DBRXPhi-3.5 Medium
  • MMLU73.778.9
Pick DBRX if

DBRX fits when…

  • Databricks-native
  • Tuned for enterprise SQL/code
Pick Phi-3.5 Medium if

Phi-3.5 Medium fits when…

  • MIT license
  • 128k context
  • Strong reasoning at 14B
  • Long-context tasks, handles 128K tokens vs 32K for DBRX.
Don't want either?

Consider Yi-Lightning

01.AI's API-tier Chinese-leaning model, strong on Chinese benchmarks at competitive pricing.

See Yi-Lightning specsDBRX vs Yi-LightningPhi-3.5 Medium vs Yi-Lightning

Frequently asked

  • Is DBRX 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?
    Phi-3.5 Medium accepts 128K tokens vs 32K for DBRX.
  • Is DBRX or Phi-3.5 Medium better for coding?
    Both DBRX 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. DBRX is licensed under Databricks Open Model License; Phi-3.5 Medium under MIT.
  • When were DBRX and Phi-3.5 Medium released?
    DBRX was released by Other on 2024-03-27. Phi-3.5 Medium was released by Microsoft on 2024-08-20.
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