Model comparison
Claude 2.1 vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude 2.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3 8B leads 34.9 to 10.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.9% for Claude 2.1 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.2 | 33.7 |
| Released | 2023-11-21 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | — | 131K |
| Max output | — | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 7 | 11 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3 8B leads
Claude 2.1: 26.2 (#327), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Claude 2.1 leads
Claude 2.1: 21.4 (#221), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 51% | 59.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.27 | 136.17 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| ForecastBench | 54.2 | — |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Claude 2.1: 10.2 (#315), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.9% | 56.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Claude 2.1: 15.4 (#292), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 33% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| MMLU | 73.5% | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Claude 2.1: —, Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)
| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Claude 2.1 better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.
Is Claude 2.1 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.0 versus 26.2 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Claude 2.1 and Qwen3 8B share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude 2.1 has 7 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.