Grok-3 Mini vs Sakana Namazu: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Grok-3 Mini is developed by xAI, while Sakana Namazu comes from Sakana AI. Grok-3 Mini was released in February 2025, and Sakana Namazu followed 18 months later in August 2026.
We have 4 benchmark results for Grok-3 Mini and 3 benchmark results for Sakana Namazu, but they were measured on different benchmarks, so there is no like-for-like scoreboard.
Grok-3 Mini is the cheaper API at $0.30 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, roughly 3 times cheaper than Sakana Namazu at $0.95 and $4. Sakana Namazu takes the larger context window at 256K tokens, compared with 128K for Grok-3 Mini. Both accept text and images as input. On tooling, only Grok-3 Mini supports function calling and only Grok-3 Mini offers structured output.
| Characteristic | Grok-3 Mini | Sakana Namazu |
|---|---|---|
| Company | xAI | Sakana AI |
| Release Date | February 16, 2025 | August 3, 2026 |
| Parameters | — | — |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 128K | 256K |
| Context (output) | 8K | 256K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.30 | $0.95 |
| Output Price / 1M | $0.50 | $4.00 |
| Average Score | 87.8% | 92.4% |
Verdict
Sakana Namazu leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Grok-3 Mini — 0.9, Sakana Namazu — 0.9.
Grok-3 Mini is 6.2x cheaper: input $0.30/1M vs $0.95/1M tokens.
Sakana Namazu supports a larger context: 256K vs 128K tokens.
Sakana Namazu is newer: released 8/3/2026 vs 2/16/2025.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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The Grok-3 Mini and Sakana Namazu comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Grok-3 Mini or Sakana Namazu page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.