GPT-OSS 120B vs Llama 5
Benchmarks, API Token Pricing, Context Window & Speed Comparison
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GPT-OSS 120B by OpenAI and Llama 5 by Meta represent two of the frontier AI models analyzed in our comprehensive 2026 AI benchmark and LLM comparison. In this head-to-head evaluation, we examine API token pricing, context window specifications, inference speed (tokens per second), and empirical reasoning performance. From a pure economic perspective, Llama 5 holds a notable pricing advantage for token ingestion. On output generation, Llama 5 is more economical per million generated tokens. In data-heavy architectures requiring extensive repository or document analysis, Llama 5 provides an expanded memory horizon with 5,000K tokens. In latency-sensitive production environments, GPT-OSS 120B leads in tokens-per-second throughput, making it ideal for real-time conversational agents and high-concurrency workflows. Below is the complete empirical head-to-head breakdown across cost, speed, context, and capability matrices.
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GPT-OSS 120B
Open HeavyweightA heavyweight open-weight GPT reasoning model that runs on a single GPU.
$0.15 / 1M
$0.60 / 1M
131.1K tokens
45.5%
Llama 5
Recursive Self-ImprovementMeta's flagship open model featuring native agent training, recursive self-improvement, and 5M token context.
$0.00 / 1M
$0.00 / 1M
5M tokens
74%
Key Differences at a Glance
- Llama 5 is 1.0x cheaper for API usage (input + output tokens combined).
- Llama 5 has a larger context window (5M vs 131K tokens).
- GPT-OSS 120B is faster at 95 tok/s vs 65 tok/s.
- Llama 5 leads on SWE-bench coding (74.0% vs 45.5%).
| Feature | GPT-OSS 120B | Llama 5 |
|---|---|---|
Intelligence Index Composite reasoning & knowledge score (0-100) | 56 | 94 |
Provider | OpenAI | Meta |
Input Price Cost per million input tokens | $0.15 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Output Price Cost per million output tokens | $0.60 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Blended Price Weighted 7:2:1 cache:input:output per 1M | $0.10 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Context Window Maximum input + output tokens | 131.1K tokens~197 A4 pages of text | 5M tokens~7,500 A4 pages of text |
Max Output Tokens Per single request | 33K | 128K |
Throughput Speed Tokens generated per second | 95 tok/s | 65 tok/s |
SWE-bench Verified Real-world software engineering | 45.5% | 74% |
GPQA Diamond Graduate-level reasoning | 68.5% | 84% |
Cached Input Price Prompt caching discount per 1M tokens | $0.01 / 1M | $0.00 / 1M |
Who Wins Where?
At-a-glance decision frameworkEmpirical Head-to-Head Benchmark Scores
Official evaluation metrics verified by independent third-party research labs.
Industry benchmark evaluating real-world GitHub issue resolution and multi-file debugging.
Challenging questions created by domain experts to test complex PhD-level reasoning.
Hardened reasoning and academic knowledge benchmark with reduced lucky-guess probability.
Crowdsourced human preference evaluation based on blind, head-to-head model battles.
Extremely difficult, closed-ended questions spanning the frontier of human expert knowledge.
Autonomous multi-step tasks executed inside a real command-line terminal environment.
Research-grade coding problems drawn from real scientific and numerical workloads.
Contamination-free competitive programming problems collected continuously over time.
American Invitational Mathematics Examination — multi-step Olympiad-level reasoning.
Accuracy when reasoning over very large inputs that fill the model context window.
Tokens emitted per second during active generation streaming.
Latency & Response Time
Time to first token (TTFT) and estimated end-to-end response time for a typical 500-token response.
Real-Time Interactive Token Cost Simulator
Adjust sliders to calculate projected monthly cloud API spending with prompt caching discounts.
GPT-OSS 120B · Strengths & Key Advantages
- o4-mini-class performance with fully open weights
- Runs on a single high-memory GPU thanks to MoE routing
- Strong tool calling for self-hosted agents
- Near-o4-mini quality on private infrastructure
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Still behind proprietary frontier models on reasoning
- Text-only modality support
- Requires serious GPU memory to self-host
Llama 5 · Strengths & Key Advantages
- 5 Million token context with native multi-audio/video understanding
- Recursive self-improvement training loop
- Completely open weights with enterprise commercial license
Considerations & Trade-offs
- Complex MoE serving requirements
- 4B tokenizer changes require updating legacy fine-tuning harnesses
Token Use & Task Economics
Estimated cost and token consumption to complete one representative agentic task.
| Metric | GPT-OSS 120B | Llama 5 |
|---|---|---|
Cost per Task Estimated USD to finish one task | $0.14 | $0.00 |
Output Tokens / Task Tokens generated per task | 45K | 40K |
Reasoning Tokens / Task Thinking tokens burned per task | 22K | 20K |
Technical Specifications
Architecture, release timeline, capabilities, and modalities.
| Feature | GPT-OSS 120B | Llama 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Official API Model ID (SDK) | gpt-oss-120b | meta-llama/Llama-5 |
| API Protocol | OpenAI Responses API & Chat Completions v1 | OpenAI-Compatible REST / vLLM / SGLang / HuggingFace TGI |
| Release Date | 2025-08 | 2026-04 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | June 2024 | January 2026 |
| Architecture | Sparse MoE transformer with reasoning | Mixture-of-Experts with recursive self-improvement (~600B total, 40-80B active) |
| Parameters | 117B (5.1B active MoE) | 600B+ total (~40-80B active) |
| Enterprise Rate Limits (RPM / TPM) | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud | Unlimited (Hardware-bound on self-hosted GPU) / 10,000 RPM Cloud · Unlimited local throughput / 10M+ TPM Managed Cloud |
| Long-Context Tier (>128K/200K) | Flat rate ($0.15/1M in) across full 131K window | Free across full context window (only KV-cache VRAM scales) |
| Prompt Cache Policy & TTL | Automatic prefix caching at $0.015/1M (no extra cache-write fee) | Automatic prefix KV-caching in vLLM / SGLang (0 cost) |
| Computer Use / GUI Agent | API / CLI Tool-Use & DOM Agent ready (no raw pixel desktop click loop) | Supported (Screen coordinate grounding, browser & desktop GUI action loops) |
| MCP & Parallel Tool Calling | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema | Native MCP Client/Server ready · Parallel function calling · 100% Strict JSON Schema |
| Web Search Grounding & Sandbox | Native Web Search tool + Hosted Code Interpreter & File Search RAG | Supported via external Tavily/Exa Search & E2B/Docker Sandbox tools |
| Official Fine-Tuning Support | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) | Full Weights SFT, LoRA, QLoRA, DPO & GRPO RL (Unsloth / Axolotl / Llama-Factory) |
| Multimodal Token Billing | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) | Text BPE (~4 chars/token) · Vision (~258–765 tokens per image tile) · Audio (~25–32 tokens/sec) · Video (~258–300 tokens/sec) |
| Quantization & Min GPU VRAM | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 73 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 252 GB VRAM (Native BF16) | BF16 / FP16, FP8 Dynamic, INT4 AWQ / GPTQ, GGUF (Q4_K_M / Q8_0) · 372 GB VRAM (4-bit Quantized) · 1290 GB VRAM (Native BF16) |
| Safety & Frontier Classification | OpenAI Preparedness Framework Audited & System Card Published | Open-Weights System Card + Customizable Guardrail Layer (Llama Guard / ShieldGemma) |
| Enterprise Compliance (ZDR/HIPAA/SOC2) | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control | 100% Air-Gapped On-Premises / Private VPC · Full HIPAA, GDPR & SOC2 Control |
| Input Modalities | text | text, vision, video, audio |
| Output Modalities | text | text |
GPT-OSS 120B vs Llama 5: Quick Answers
Which is more intelligent, GPT-OSS 120B or Llama 5?
Llama 5 is more intelligent. It scores 94 compared with 56 on the composite Intelligence Index.
Which model is faster?
GPT-OSS 120B is faster, generating 95 tokens per second compared with 65 tokens per second.
Which model is cheaper to run?
Llama 5 is cheaper at $0.00 per 1M tokens blended, compared with $0.10 (7:2:1 cache:input:output ratio).
Which model has lower latency?
GPT-OSS 120B has lower latency, with a time to first token of 0.48s compared with 0.85s.
Which model has a larger context window?
Llama 5 has a larger context window, supporting 5M tokens compared with 131.1K tokens.
Verdict
Verdict & Model Selection Recommendation: Choose GPT-OSS 120B if your priority is Self-hosted agents that need near-frontier quality on private data. Its performance in demanding tasks justifies its operational token cost. Choose Llama 5 if your workflow prioritizes Autonomous open-source multi-agent systems, deep software refactoring, and frontier research. For large-scale batch processing or customer-facing conversational interfaces, its balance of speed and economics delivers superior ROI.
Frequently asked questions
How does GPT-OSS 120B compare to Llama 5 in API token pricing and cost per token?+
GPT-OSS 120B costs $0.15 per 1M input tokens and $0.60 per 1M output tokens, whereas Llama 5 costs $0.00 input and $0.00 output. Overall, Llama 5 is the more cost-effective model for high-volume API pipelines. Both models support prompt caching discounts of up to 90% for repeated prompt prefixes.
Which model has a larger context window: GPT-OSS 120B or Llama 5?+
GPT-OSS 120B supports a context window of 131K tokens (~98k words), while Llama 5 supports 5,000K tokens (~3,750k words). Therefore, Llama 5 can process more textual data and document context in a single prompt.
Which AI model is better for software engineering and coding: GPT-OSS 120B or Llama 5?+
GPT-OSS 120B scores 45.5% on SWE-bench Verified while Llama 5 scores 74%. For autonomous software engineering and multi-file debugging, Llama 5 holds the verified benchmark lead.
What is the difference in reasoning capability and extended thinking between GPT-OSS 120B and Llama 5?+
GPT-OSS 120B features native chain-of-thought extended thinking mode with configurable reasoning effort. In contrast, Llama 5 provides chain-of-thought reasoning depth for complex math and science.
How does inference speed (tokens per second) compare between GPT-OSS 120B and Llama 5?+
GPT-OSS 120B generates approximately 95 tokens per second, while Llama 5 delivers 65 tokens per second. In latency-sensitive production environments, GPT-OSS 120B provides faster time-to-first-token (TTFT) and higher streaming response velocity.
Can you implement a tiered LLM routing setup combining GPT-OSS 120B and Llama 5 to optimize costs?+
Yes! High-efficiency architectures route high-frequency routine classification and conversational tasks to Llama 5 to save operational costs, and dynamically escalate complex architectural queries or reasoning tasks to GPT-OSS 120B. This tiered routing pattern cuts overall API bills by up to 70%.
Understand key metrics like context window, token pricing, reasoning mode, and SWE-bench scores in our comprehensive AI glossary.
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Benchmark scores, token prices, and rate limits evolve rapidly as AI labs release model updates. Always verify current specifications and pricing on the official provider documentation.
Sources: GetInfoUs Independent AI Benchmarks & Official API Specs