Comparisons are what we really need here. I came across this article on the subject, and one paragraph stood out to me.
“…and while they do look very similar in their final form, this time around the Cycles rendering needed a lot of help to get to this level, whereas the Octane rendering is, apart from the grade obviously, out of the box.”
I imagine this is probably the biggest difference between Cycles and Octane. It’s not that the former can’t perform at the level of the latter, but that it can take more effort to get to the same level of output.
So you probably could render a scene in Blender that’d match the look and quality of Midphase’s video above, but you’ll have to spend some time messing around with various settings, and probably know how to work around a few Cycles specific quirks to get there.
edit: If only I hit the reply button 3 seconds earlier.