Model comparison

o3-mini vs Qwen3.8 Max

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 29 shared benchmarks.

o3-mini OpenAI

36.7

Rank #212 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

56.8

Rank #22 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 29 benchmarks with published results for both. o3-mini scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 9 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 28.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3): 18.6% for o3-mini and 74.7% for Qwen3.8 Max.
  • o3-mini is cheaper at $1.10 / $4.40 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
  • Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 200K.

Side by side

o3-mini and Qwen3.8 Max specifications
o3-miniQwen3.8 Max
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index36.756.8
Released2024-12-202026-08-02
WeightsProprietaryProprietary
Context window200K1M
Max output100K131K
Input $ / M tokens$1.10$2
Output $ / M tokens$4.40$6
Results tracked5139

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 40.8 (#132), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
SciCode39.8%53.2%
LMArena Coding13781502
DeepSWE—57.5%
Aider Polyglot60.4%—
LMArena WebDev—1674
FrontierSWE—17.8%
GSO1.3%—
WeirdML43.7%—
LiveBench Coding82.7%—
CadEval54%—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 29.6 (#84), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
APEX-Agents—63.3%
τ²-bench Banking—55.1%
Cybench22.5%—
GDP.pdf—23.2%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 16.3 (#305), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
CritPt0.3%20%
Chess Puzzles17%40%
LMArena Hard Prompts13661496
Mystery Game Puzzles7%38%
DTBench68.8%92%
LMCA19%46.2%
Epoch Capabilities Index140.34156.41
ARC-AGI-23%—
SimpleBench22.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)—88.3%
ARC-AGI-134.5%—
LiveBench Reasoning89.6%—
LiveBench Data Analysis70.6%—
ForecastBench59.6—
LiveBench75.9%—

Math Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 28.1 (#244), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)18.6%74.7%
FrontierMath Tier 40%46.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202576.9%100%
LMArena Math13961499
ProofBench—58%
LiveBench Math77.3%—
MATH Level 596.5%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)12.4%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)4.2%—

Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 38.3 (#146), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
GPQA Diamond77%92.7%
SimpleQA Verified15.3%47.3%
LMArena Expert13641507
Confabulations17.9%—

Multimodal Not comparable

o3-mini: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
LMArena Vision—1314
Furniture Assembly—20%

Multilingual Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 45.7 (#164), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
LMArena Non-English13191472
LMArena Chinese13791538
LMArena French13341503
LMArena German13031483
LMArena Japanese12861467
LMArena Korean13141461
LMArena Russian13041481
LMArena Spanish13211492

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 75.1 (#72), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
LMArena Instruction Following13371479
LiveBench Instruction Following84.4%—

Long Context Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 33.8 (#256), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
LMArena Longer Query13431489
Fiction.LiveBench50%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads

o3-mini: 50.3 (#182), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarko3-miniQwen3.8 Max
LMArena Text13371483
LMArena Creative Writing12861479
LMArena Multi-Turn13201489
Short-Story Creative Writing61.7%—
LiveBench Language50.7%—

Frequently asked questions

Is o3-mini better than Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. o3-mini costs 1.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, o3-mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

o3-mini is cheaper. It lists at $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.

Is o3-mini or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?

Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 40.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks do o3-mini and Qwen3.8 Max share?

29 benchmarks have published results for both models. o3-mini has 51 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.

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