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o3-mini vs Yi-Lightning

A complete head-to-head: pricing, context window, benchmarks, modality coverage, and openness, with a programmatic verdict synthesized from the underlying data.

Updated

o3-mini specs · Yi-Lightning specs
Verdict by category
  • PriceYi-Lightning

    Yi-Lightning is roughly 31.4× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $4.40 per 1M).

  • Context windowo3-mini

    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 16K, 12.5× the room for long documents and codebases.

  • BenchmarksTie

    No directly comparable public benchmarks are available for both models, check the spec sheets for individual scores.

  • ModalitiesTie

    Both handle text.

  • OpennessTie

    Both are closed-weight, API-only.

It's a genuine coin-flip between o3-mini and Yi-Lightning: 1 category wins each, with the rest tied. Yi-Lightning is roughly 31.4× cheaper on output tokens ($0.14 vs $4.40 per 1M). o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 16K, 12.5× the room for long documents and codebases.

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 are closed-weight, API-only.

o3-mini is the newer of the two, released 4 months after Yi-Lightning, which usually means a more recent knowledge cutoff and updated safety post-training. o3-mini is usually picked for reasoning and math workloads, while Yi-Lightning sees more deployments in chinese llm and cheapest llm. If pricing matters more than every last benchmark point, run the numbers in the calculator below before committing.

Side-by-side specs

Speco3-miniYi-Lightning
ProviderOpenAIOther
ReleasedJan 2025Oct 2024
Modalitiestexttext
Context window200K tokens16K tokens
Max output,,
Input · 1M$1.10 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Output · 1M$4.40 / 1M tokens$0.14 / 1M tokens
Knowledge cutoff2023-10,
Open weightsNoNo
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$9.90 vs $0.630
  • Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day$99.00 vs $6.30
  • RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day$191 vs $21.84

Light usage, 100k in / 50k out per day: $9.90 vs $0.630 per month, model B comes out ahead. Heavy usage, 1M in / 500k out per day: $99.00 vs $6.30 per month, model B comes out ahead. RAG workload, 5M in / 200k out per day: $191 vs $21.84 per month, model B comes out ahead.

Price calculator

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

  • o3-mini$0.330
  • Yi-Lightning$0.021

Benchmarks compared

Only sourced numbers. Where a benchmark is missing for one model we show the available value rather than fabricating the other.

o3-miniYi-Lightning
  • GPQA79.7
Pick o3-mini if

o3-mini fits when…

  • Reasoning at mid-tier cost
  • Fast for a thinking model
  • Long-context tasks, handles 200K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
Pick Yi-Lightning if

Yi-Lightning fits when…

  • Cheap
  • Strong Chinese
  • Fast
  • Cost-sensitive workloads, 31.4× cheaper than o3-mini on output tokens.
Don't want either?

Consider GPT-5.5

OpenAI's mid-cycle GPT-5 refresh, improved reasoning, tool use, and multimodal grounding over the 2025 launch.

See GPT-5.5 specso3-mini vs GPT-5.5Yi-Lightning vs GPT-5.5

Frequently asked

  • Is o3-mini or Yi-Lightning cheaper?
    Yi-Lightning is cheaper at $0.14 / 1M tokens per million output tokens, vs $4.40 / 1M tokens for o3-mini.
  • Which has the larger context window?
    o3-mini accepts 200K tokens vs 16K for Yi-Lightning.
  • Is o3-mini or Yi-Lightning better for coding?
    Both o3-mini and Yi-Lightning 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?
    Neither model ships open weights, both are accessible only via their respective providers' APIs.
  • When were o3-mini and Yi-Lightning released?
    o3-mini was released by OpenAI on 2025-01-31. Yi-Lightning was released by Other on 2024-10-16.
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