Model comparison

Gemma 2 9B vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 25.7 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 2 9B Google

25.7

Rank #334 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #237 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 9B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 8B in 5 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 9.7.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 0.6% for Gemma 2 9B and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.

Side by side

Gemma 2 9B and Qwen3 8B specifications
Gemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
ProviderGoogleAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index25.733.3
Released2024-06-242025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window—131K
Max output—8K
Input $ / M tokens—$0.18
Output $ / M tokens—$0.70
Results tracked3511

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 8B leads

Gemma 2 9B: 29.0 (#299), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
SciCode—22.6%
BigCodeBench Instruct34.7%—
LiveBench Coding22.5%—
LMArena Coding1174—
BigCodeBench Complete40.6%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Gemma 2 9B: —, Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—42.6%

Reasoning Too close to call

Gemma 2 9B: 15.3 (#306), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
Epoch Capabilities Index119.78136.17
CritPt—0%
Chess Puzzles—5%
LiveBench Reasoning15.2%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1172—
DTBench—59.7%
LiveBench Data Analysis36.4%—
LMCA—8.8%
LiveBench28.7%—
PIQA83.7%—

Math Qwen3 8B leads

Gemma 2 9B: 9.3 (#312), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20250.6%56.1%
LiveBench Math19.8%—
LMArena Math1183—
MATH Level 521%—
GSM8K84.9%—

Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads

Gemma 2 9B: 9.7 (#300), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond27.5%56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—4.8%
LMArena Expert1147—
BoolQ85.7%—
MMLU72.1%—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 2 9B: 36.8 (#233), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1188—
LMArena Chinese1185—
LMArena French1189—
LMArena German1186—
LMArena Japanese1144—
LMArena Korean1137—
LMArena Russian1200—
LMArena Spanish1200—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemma 2 9B: 57.8 (#264), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
LiveBench Instruction Following52.6%—
LMArena Instruction Following1178—

Long Context Qwen3 8B leads

Gemma 2 9B: 36.3 (#228), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench—62.1%
LMArena Longer Query1197—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemma 2 9B: 32.3 (#276), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGemma 2 9BQwen3 8B
LMArena Text1207—
LMArena Creative Writing1206—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing841—
LMArena Multi-Turn1193—
LiveBench Language25.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 2 9B better than Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 25.7 on the Noometry Index.

Is Gemma 2 9B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.4 versus 29.0 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 9B and Qwen3 8B share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 9B has 35 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.

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