Model comparison
Qwen3 8B vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 7.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 7 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3 8B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 Max in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 Max leads 48.1 to 36.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 59.7% for Qwen3 8B and 82.1% for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 33.7 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-04 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Max output | 8K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.18 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.70 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 22.6% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | — | 370.45 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 42.6% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 71.56 |
Reasoning Qwen3 Max leads
Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 5% | 4% |
| DTBench | 59.7% | 82.1% |
| LMCA | 8.8% | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 136.17 | 142.38 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 30.1% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 56.1% | 73.3% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1446 |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.8% | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1455 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1478 |
| LMArena French | — | 1449 |
| LMArena German | — | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1462 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1419 |
Long Context Qwen3 Max leads
Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 62.1% | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1438 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1446 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3 8B better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 7.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 8B or Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Qwen3 8B or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3 8B and Qwen3 Max share?
7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.