GPT-4o mini vs Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

OpenAI · US  |  Tencent · China · Updated June 2026

Quick verdict

Pick GPT-4o mini for very low cost per token for its capability tier or strong coding for a small model (87.2% humaneval). Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Choose Hunyuan Hy4 Preview if you need self-hosting or data privacy; GPT-4o mini if you want a managed API.

GPT-4o mini (OpenAI, US) and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent, China) line up two different AI ecosystems against each other — a comparison that is as much about cost philosophy and openness as raw capability. GPT-4o mini is openAI's budget small multimodal model — cheap, fast text-and-vision intelligence that outscored peer small models like Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku on MMLU and HumanEval at launch. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.

Key differences at a glance

Side-by-side specs

SpecGPT-4o miniHunyuan Hy4 Preview
ProviderOpenAI (US) Tencent (China)
ReleasedJuly 18, 2024 August 28, 2026
Context window128K (~192 pages) 1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
Price (in/out)$0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
Open weight?No — API only Yes — self-hostable
Modalitiestext, image text
SWE-Bench VerifiedNot published Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1MNot published Not published

Who wins what

Very low cost per token for its capability tier

GPT-4o mini

At $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens), and that gap compounds at volume.

Strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval)

GPT-4o mini

OpenAI's budget small multimodal model — cheap, fast text-and-vision intelligence that outscored peer small models like Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku on MMLU and HumanEval at launch — and it runs cheaper at $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens.

Leading MMLU among peer small models (82%)

GPT-4o mini

GPT-4o mini lists leading MMLU among peer small models (82%) among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.

GPQA Diamond (92.3)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it carries the larger 1M+ tokens context.

Terminal-Bench (85.4)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and its weights are open while GPT-4o mini is API-only.

SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it is the newer of the two.

Lowest cost at scale

GPT-4o mini

At $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.

Largest single-prompt input

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Its 1M+ tokens window is about 7.8× larger than GPT-4o mini's 128K, fitting roughly 1,500 pages in one prompt.

Which should you pick?

A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume

GPT-4o mini

At $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens it undercuts Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.

Someone analysing very long documents or codebases

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Larger 1M+ tokens window fits more in one prompt.

A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; GPT-4o mini is API-only.

Anyone whose priority is very low cost per token for its capability tier

GPT-4o mini

It is specifically built for that.

Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3)

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

That is its strongest area.

An enterprise with regional data-residency rules

GPT-4o mini or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview

Origin (US vs China) affects where data is processed and which compliance regime applies — check the provider's terms for your region.

GPT-4o mini: where it fits

OpenAI's budget small multimodal model — cheap, fast text-and-vision intelligence that outscored peer small models like Gemini 1.5 Flash and Claude 3 Haiku on MMLU and HumanEval at launch. Released July 18, 2024 by OpenAI, it is built for very low cost per token for its capability tier, strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval), leading MMLU among peer small models (82%), and text and image (vision) understanding in the API.

Its trade-offs are real: only 128K context with an October 2023 knowledge cutoff, and weaker on hard reasoning and coding than frontier models. At $0.15 in / $0.6 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits

Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).

Its trade-offs: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.

The bottom line for this matchup

The defining split here is open vs. closed. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. GPT-4o mini gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.

Want both GPT-4o mini and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.

See pricing

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4o mini or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview better for coding?

Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, GPT-4o mini leans toward very low cost per token for its capability tier while Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while GPT-4o mini is API-metered at $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.

Which has the bigger context window?

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — 1M+ tokens vs 128K, about 7.8× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.

Can I use both GPT-4o mini and Hunyuan Hy4 Preview together?

Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GPT-4o mini, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.

Which is newer, GPT-4o mini or Hunyuan Hy4 Preview?

Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 26 months after GPT-4o mini.

Related comparisons

Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.