Model comparison
Qwen Max vs Qwen2.5 7B Instruct
Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 2 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 2 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Max scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen Max leads 30.3 to 17.0.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 56.1% for Qwen Max and 35.5% for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct.
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper at $0.17 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 33K.
- Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 34.7 | 29.0 |
| Released | 2024-04-03 | 2024-09 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 33K | 131K |
| Max output | 8K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $1.60 | $0.17 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $6.40 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 23 | 15 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen2.5 7B Instruct leads
Qwen Max: 30.7 (#292), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 36.5 (#208)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 21.8% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | — | 37.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1288 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | — | 46.1% |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen Max: —, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.8 (#124)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| BALROG | — | 7.8% |
Reasoning Qwen Max leads
Qwen Max: 25.1 (#151), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.8 (#322)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | — | 0% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1269 | — |
| DTBench | — | 47.7% |
| LMCA | — | 6.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 118.51 |
Math Qwen Max leads
Qwen Max: 22.3 (#276), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 12.6 (#306)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 16.1% | 2.5% |
| Omni-MATH | — | 29.4% |
| LMArena Math | 1275 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 67.2% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1% | — |
Knowledge Qwen Max leads
Qwen Max: 30.3 (#228), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#286)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.1% | 35.5% |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 53.9% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 34.1% |
| LMArena Expert | 1248 | — |
| MMLU | — | 72.9% |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen Max: 41.8 (#202), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1263 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1254 | — |
| LMArena French | 1330 | — |
| LMArena German | 1254 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1205 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1142 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1274 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1290 | — |
Instruction Following Qwen Max leads
Qwen Max: 66.5 (#208), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.2 (#231)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | — | 74.1% |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1262 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Qwen Max: 39.4 (#180), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1288 | — |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Qwen Max: 47.8 (#205), Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#195)
| Benchmark | Qwen Max | Qwen2.5 7B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1282 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1248 | — |
| WildBench | — | 73.1% |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1277 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Max better than Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?
Qwen Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 34.7 to 29.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 9.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen Max or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct?
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $0.17 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.
Is Qwen Max or Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.5 versus 30.7 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct does, with 131K tokens against 33K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen Max and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct share?
2 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Max has 23 scored results on Noometry and Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15.