Model Details
Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct
Quick answer: Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct is Microsoft's August 2024 compact instruction model scoring 86.2% GSM8K, 84.6% ARC-C, 47.4% MMLU-Pro, and 37.0% Arena Hard. Apache 2.0 — the smallest Phi-3.5 family member.
At a Glance
Where Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct leads
- 84.6% ARC-C — excellent common-sense reasoning
- 86.2% GSM8K — strong math at mini scale
- Apache 2.0 — fully open
- Very small: minimal hardware requirements
Where it lags
- 47.4% MMLU-Pro — limited advanced academic coverage
- 37.0% Arena Hard — weaker instruction following quality
- August 2024: superseded by Phi-4 Mini (Mar 2025) and Phi-4 Reasoning (Apr 2025)
Best for: Ultra-low-resource deployments; edge/embedded scenarios; legacy Phi-3.5 ecosystem; baselines.
What Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct Is
Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct is Microsoft's August 2024 compact instruction model in the Phi-3.5 family. It runs on minimal hardware while maintaining competitive GSM8K and ARC-C scores for its size class.
For new deployments, Phi-4 Mini (March 2025) is recommended — it improves substantially on MMLU-Pro and instruction quality while remaining compact.
Specifications
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Organization | Microsoft |
| License | Apache 2.0 |
| HuggingFace | microsoft/Phi-3.5-mini-instruct |
| Release date | August 20, 2024 |
| Modality | Text only |
| Context window | 128K tokens |
Pricing
Open weights under Apache 2.0 — self-host at no cost.
Public Benchmark Scores
| Benchmark | Score | Source | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| GSM8K | 86.2% | Benchgen evaluation | 2024-08 |
| ARC-C | 84.6% | Benchgen evaluation | 2024-08 |
| MMLU-Pro | 47.4% | Benchgen evaluation | 2024-08 |
| Arena Hard | 37.0% | Benchgen evaluation | 2024-08 |
Phi-3.5 Mini vs Alternatives
| Model | GSM8K | MMLU-Pro | Size | License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct | 86.2% | 47.4% | Mini | Apache 2.0 |
| Phi-4 Mini | — | — | Mini | MIT |
| Phi-3.5 MoE Instruct | 88.7% | 45.3% | MoE | Apache 2.0 |
For new mini-scale deployments: Phi-4 Mini (March 2025) is the recommended upgrade path.
Related Models & Benchmarks
- Compare: Phi-4 Mini · Phi-3.5 MoE Instruct
- Benchmarks: GSM8K · ARC-C · MMLU-Pro
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct?
Microsoft's August 2024 compact instruction model scoring 86.2% GSM8K, 84.6% ARC-C, 47.4% MMLU-Pro. Apache 2.0 — superseded by Phi-4 Mini for new deployments.Specs from Microsoft's Phi-3.5 Mini Instruct release (August 2024) and Benchgen evaluations. Last updated 2026-07-24.
Benchmark Leaderboards
This model isn’t on any benchmark leaderboard yet.