Phi
by Microsoft
At a glance
Family of small open-weight language models from Microsoft, designed for strong reasoning at compact sizes.
open-weights small-language-model llm
- Licence
- MIT
- Category
- Open Models
- Business model
- Open (open weights/source)
- Availability
- Global
- Launched
- 2023
Overview
Phi is Microsoft's family of small open-weight language models designed to deliver strong reasoning at compact sizes, from a few billion parameters up to Phi-4's 14B. Trained heavily on curated synthetic data, Phi models suit on-device and edge deployment. They are released under the MIT license and are free to use, including commercially.
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Key features
- Small models with outsized reasoning performance
- Sizes suited to on-device and edge inference
- Multimodal and mini variants
- MIT-licensed open weights
Use cases
- Running capable models on laptops and phones
- Cost-efficient inference for simple tasks
- Research on synthetic-data training
Pricing
Phi models are free under the MIT license; hosted inference through Azure AI Foundry is billed by usage.
Record details
Provenance, dates and links are kept here so the main sections stay about the product itself.
Links, dates and provenance
- Record updated
- 2026-10-09
- Model family
- Phi
- Founded
- 1975
- Headquarters
- US
- Canonical URL
- https://globalaiproductindex.com/products/phi/
Selection profile
Every field says where its value comes from. "Unknown" means we have not confirmed it — it does not mean the product lacks the feature.
Selection profile11 fields2 unknown
- Tasks it fits
- Running models yourself
Derived from the record: category "open-models".
Suggest a correction - How you use it
- Model weights
Derived from record tag matching /^open-weights$/.
Suggest a correction - Runs on
- Windows
Matched on the vendor page: “SQL Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Managed Redis Microsoft Fabric Azure Databricks Linux virtual machines in Azure Windows Server on Azure Azure Functions Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets Azure API Management Azure ”
Suggest a correction - Where it runs
- Local machine
Open-weight models are run by the user, not served by the vendor.
Suggest a correction - Works offline
- Partly
Local execution implies the model can run without a network once downloaded, but the vendor does not state this in the record.
Suggest a correction - Official service region
- Global
Mirrors the availability field already on the record ("global").
Suggest a correction - Public API
- Not recorded
The record does not state whether a public API exists.
Suggest a correction - Licence
- MIT
Mirrors the licence already recorded on the product record; not re-verified against the licence text by this migration.
Suggest a correction - Commercial use
- Permitted
Recorded licence allows commercial use (copyleft obligations may still apply).
Suggest a correction - Interface languages
- Not recorded
No vendor page read in this pass states the product's own interface languages; the key exists so the field can be answered later rather than left absent.
Suggest a correction - Billing
- Open source Free Free allowance: Yes Subscription required: No
Prices are the vendor’s advertised entry price and exclude taxes; always confirm on the vendor’s own page.
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Where each value comes from
- Tasks it fits
- Our inference
- How you use it
- Our inference
- Runs on
- Verified 2026-10-09 azure.microsoft.com ↗
- Where it runs
- Our inference
- Works offline
- Our inference
- Official service region
- Our inference
- Public API
- Our inference
- Licence
- Our inference
- Commercial use
- Our inference
- Interface languages
- Unknown
Key facts and their evidence
Each fact lists the conditions it holds under, the page it was read from and the day it was checked.
-
Platform support: windows Verified 2026-10-09 azure.microsoft.com ↗
Applies to: As stated on azure.microsoft.com on 2026-10-09
Matched on the vendor page: “SQL Azure Database for PostgreSQL Azure Managed Redis Microsoft Fabric Azure Databricks Linux virtual machines in Azure Windows Server on Azure Azure Functions Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets Azure API Management Azure ”
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Frequently asked questions
What is Phi?
Phi is Microsoft's line of small language models that punch above their size in reasoning, math, and coding.
Are Phi models open?
Yes, Phi models are released with open weights under the permissive MIT license.
Where can Phi models run?
Locally on consumer hardware, on edge devices, or as paid hosted endpoints on Azure.
What does Phi not record?
No plan price is recorded for Phi, and no separate documentation or pricing page could be confirmed on the vendor site, so its Azure costs are not established.
Similar products
- Gemma — Google's family of lightweight open-weight models derived from the same research as Gemini, currently in the Gemma 4 generation.
- OLMo — Fully open large language model family from Ai2, released with its training data, code, and weights.
- Baichuan — Open-weight bilingual LLM family from Beijing-based Baichuan Intelligence, now focused on medical AI with its Baichuan-M reasoning models.
- Command R — Cohere's open-weight LLM family optimized for retrieval-augmented generation and tool use; succeeded by Command A as Cohere's flagship.
- DBRX — Open-weight mixture-of-experts LLM released by Databricks in 2024; retired from Databricks serving in 2025, though the weights remain available.
- DeepSeek — Open-weight LLM family and chat assistant from Hangzhou-based DeepSeek, known for strong reasoning models.
Related guides
Sources
This record was last reviewed on 2026-10-09.
Machine-readable record: /api/products/phi.json · Spot an error? Suggest a correction