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 Llama 4 Scout for largest advertised context (10m) or open weights, single-gpu friendly. Choose Llama 4 Scout if you need self-hosting or data privacy; GPT-4o mini if you want a managed API.
GPT-4o mini (OpenAI) and Llama 4 Scout (Meta) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. 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. Llama 4 Scout is the 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences
Cost model: Llama 4 Scout ships open weights you can self-host (hardware cost only, no per-token fee), while GPT-4o mini is API-metered at $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens. Your choice depends on whether you want zero marginal cost at the price of running infrastructure.
Context window: Llama 4 Scout holds 78× more — 10M (~15,000 pages) vs 128K (~192 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
Recency: Llama 4 Scout is the newer model by about 9 months (released April 2025), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Specifications
Spec
GPT-4o mini
Llama 4 Scout
Provider
OpenAI (US)
Meta (US)
Released
July 18, 2024
April 2025
Context window
128K (~192 pages)
10M (~15,000 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens
Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?
No — API only
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text, image
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
15%
Who wins what
Very low cost per token for its capability tier: GPT-4o mini — A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval): GPT-4o mini — A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Leading MMLU among peer small models (82%): GPT-4o mini — A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Largest advertised context (10M): Llama 4 Scout — A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Open weights, single-GPU friendly: Llama 4 Scout — A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Self-hosted, data-private deployment: Llama 4 Scout — A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Lowest cost at scale: Llama 4 Scout — At Open weight (self-host / free), it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Largest single-prompt input: Llama 4 Scout — Its 10M window is about 78× larger, fitting roughly 15,000 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume: Llama 4 Scout — At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts GPT-4o mini, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases: Llama 4 Scout — Larger 10M window fits more in one prompt.
A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs: Llama 4 Scout — 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 largest advertised context (10m): Llama 4 Scout — That is its strongest area.
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.
Llama 4 Scout: where it fits
The 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. Released April 2025 by Meta, it is built for largest advertised context (10M), open weights, single-GPU friendly, self-hosted, data-private deployment, and retrieval over very long inputs.
Its trade-offs: effective recall degrades far below 10M, and ~15% on long-context multi-needle reasoning. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.
The bottom line for this matchup
The defining split here is open vs. closed. Llama 4 Scout 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.
Frequently asked questions
Is GPT-4o mini or Llama 4 Scout 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 Llama 4 Scout leans toward largest advertised context (10m), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or Llama 4 Scout?
Llama 4 Scout 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?
Llama 4 Scout — 10M vs 128K, about 78× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both GPT-4o mini and Llama 4 Scout together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GPT-4o mini, Llama 4 Scout 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 Llama 4 Scout?
Llama 4 Scout — released April 2025, about 9 months after GPT-4o mini.
GPT-4o mini vs Llama 4 Scout
OpenAI · US | Meta · US · 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 Llama 4 Scout for largest advertised context (10m) or open weights, single-gpu friendly. Choose Llama 4 Scout if you need self-hosting or data privacy; GPT-4o mini if you want a managed API.
GPT-4o mini (OpenAI) and Llama 4 Scout (Meta) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. 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. Llama 4 Scout is the 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. 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
▸Cost model: Llama 4 Scout ships open weights you can self-host (hardware cost only, no per-token fee), while GPT-4o mini is API-metered at $0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens. Your choice depends on whether you want zero marginal cost at the price of running infrastructure.
▸Context window: Llama 4 Scout holds 78× more — 10M (~15,000 pages) vs 128K (~192 pages). But effective recall usually fades long before the advertised ceiling, so the bigger number only helps if the model reasons over it.
▸Recency: Llama 4 Scout is the newer model by about 9 months (released April 2025), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Side-by-side specs
Spec
GPT-4o mini
Llama 4 Scout
Provider
OpenAI (US)
Meta (US)
Released
July 18, 2024
April 2025
Context window
128K (~192 pages)
10M (~15,000 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.15/$0.6 per 1M tokens
Open weight (self-host / free)
Open weight?
No — API only
Yes — self-hostable
Modalities
text, image
text, image, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
15%
Who wins what
Very low cost per token for its capability tier
GPT-4o mini
A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Strong coding for a small model (87.2% HumanEval)
GPT-4o mini
A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Leading MMLU among peer small models (82%)
GPT-4o mini
A core design strength of GPT-4o mini.
Largest advertised context (10M)
Llama 4 Scout
A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Open weights, single-GPU friendly
Llama 4 Scout
A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Self-hosted, data-private deployment
Llama 4 Scout
A core design strength of Llama 4 Scout.
Lowest cost at scale
Llama 4 Scout
At Open weight (self-host / free), it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Largest single-prompt input
Llama 4 Scout
Its 10M window is about 78× larger, fitting roughly 15,000 pages in one prompt.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ Llama 4 Scout
At Open weight (self-host / free) it undercuts GPT-4o mini, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases
→ Llama 4 Scout
Larger 10M window fits more in one prompt.
A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs
→ Llama 4 Scout
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 largest advertised context (10m)
→ Llama 4 Scout
That is its strongest area.
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.
Llama 4 Scout: where it fits
The 10M-token open-weight giant — enormous on paper, but usable recall is far smaller. Released April 2025 by Meta, it is built for largest advertised context (10M), open weights, single-GPU friendly, self-hosted, data-private deployment, and retrieval over very long inputs.
Its trade-offs: effective recall degrades far below 10M, and ~15% on long-context multi-needle reasoning. As an open-weight model, its running cost is your own hardware rather than a per-token fee.
The bottom line for this matchup
The defining split here is open vs. closed. Llama 4 Scout 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 Llama 4 Scout 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.
Is GPT-4o mini or Llama 4 Scout 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 Llama 4 Scout leans toward largest advertised context (10m), and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, GPT-4o mini or Llama 4 Scout?
Llama 4 Scout 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?
Llama 4 Scout — 10M vs 128K, about 78× larger. Useful only if the model actually reasons over the full window, which not all do.
Can I use both GPT-4o mini and Llama 4 Scout together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you GPT-4o mini, Llama 4 Scout 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 Llama 4 Scout?
Llama 4 Scout — released April 2025, about 9 months after GPT-4o mini.
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.