GPT OSS 20B vs Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct comes out ahead, 60 to 52 and 49 on our weighted score.
OpenAIGPT OSS 20B
52/100- ECI137.8
- Price$0.07 / $0.25
- Context131K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507
49/100- ECI137.3
- Price$0.10 / $0.30
- Context262K
- Our pick
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
60/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is our pick
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 60/100 against GPT OSS 20B (52) and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (49). It leads on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
- CapabilitySeed-OSS-36B-InstructShared benchmarks: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5% · GPT OSS 20B 63.0% · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 58.9%
- Lowest priceGPT OSS 20BGPT OSS 20B $0.115 · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 $0.15 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 262,144 · GPT OSS 20B 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputsGPT OSS 20B: Text · Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507: Text · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text
- Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
| Measure | Weight | GPT OSS 20B | Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityShared benchmarks | 67% | 63 | 59 | 70 |
| Inputs & features | 20% | 35 | 25 | 35 |
| Context window | 13% | 25 | 37 | 49 |
| Overall | 100% | 52/100 | 49/100 | 60/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | GPT OSS 20BOpenAI | Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507Alibaba (Qwen) | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 137.8 (best) | 137.3 | — |
| ECI rank | #122 of 165 (best) | #124 of 165 | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 60.8% | 55.6% | 71.5% (best) |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 65.3% | 62.2% | 67.5% (best) |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.07 (best) | $0.10 | — |
| Output | $0.25 (best) | $0.30 | — |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.115 (best) | $0.15 | — |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | — |
| Price source | Median of 37 providers | Median of 12 providers | — |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 131,072 tokens | 262,144 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 16,384 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | No | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | OpenApache 2.0 | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | — | — | — |
| API providers | 41 (best) | 14 | — |
| Released | Aug 5, 2025 | Jul 28, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jun 2024 | — | Jul 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- GPT OSS 20B$1.20
- Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507$1.60
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
Which should you choose?
Which is better: GPT OSS 20B, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is the better all-round choice, scoring 60/100 against GPT OSS 20B (52) and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (49). It leads on capability and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
Which is cheaper, GPT OSS 20B, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 or Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct?
GPT OSS 20B is cheaper at $0.07 input / $0.25 output per million tokens (median across 37 API providers). Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 costs $0.10 input / $0.30 output per million tokens (median across 12 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.115 per million tokens for GPT OSS 20B versus $0.15 for Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 (1.3× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%, GPT OSS 20B 63.0% and Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 58.9%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%, GPT OSS 20B 60.8%, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 55.6%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%, GPT OSS 20B 65.3%, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 62.2%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for GPT OSS 20B, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 and 131,072 for GPT OSS 20B. Maximum output per response: GPT OSS 20B up to 32,768, Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 up to 16,384, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
GPT OSS 20B accepts text; Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 accepts text; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
Yes, all three publish their weights (Apache 2.0), so you can self-host them.
Which is newer?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct is the newest, released Aug 20, 2025. GPT OSS 20B came out Aug 5, 2025; Qwen3 30B-A3B Instruct 2507 came out Jul 28, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: GPT OSS 20B Jun 2024, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.
How do you decide the winner?
Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Nov 2, 2026.
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