Model comparison
DeepSeek-V3 vs Qwen3.8 Max
Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 7.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 24 shared benchmarks.
DeepSeek
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek-V3 scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 Max in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.8 Max leads 73.2 to 32.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 37.8% for DeepSeek-V3 and 100% for Qwen3.8 Max.
- DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper at $0.24 / $0.90 per million input/output tokens, against $2 / $6 for Qwen3.8 Max.
- Qwen3.8 Max accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 164K.
- DeepSeek-V3 has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | DeepSeek | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 39.5 | 56.8 |
| Released | 2024-12-26 | 2026-08-02 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 164K | 1M |
| Max output | 164K | 131K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.24 | $2 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.90 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 60 | 39 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 42.3 (#106), Qwen3.8 Max: 53.5 (#29)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 35.8% | 53.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1368 | 1502 |
| DeepSWE | — | 57.5% |
| Aider Polyglot | 55.1% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1674 |
| FrontierSWE | — | 17.8% |
| WeirdML | 36.1% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 50% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 70.9% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 62.2% | — |
| HumanEval+ | 86.6% | — |
| MBPP+ | 73% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 45.4 (#14)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 63.3% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 55.1% |
| GDP.pdf | — | 23.2% |
| METR Time Horizons | 49.6% | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 20.5 (#236), Qwen3.8 Max: 54.4 (#26)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 20% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1365 | 1496 |
| DTBench | 64.8% | 92% |
| LMCA | 15.5% | 46.2% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 135.94 | 156.41 |
| SimpleBench | 27.2% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 52.3% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 88.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 40% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 65.8% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 38% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 60.9% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 87.5% | — |
| ForecastBench | 59.1 | — |
| HellaSwag | 88.9% | — |
| LiveBench | 66.9% | — |
| PIQA | 84.7% | — |
| WinoGrande | 85.2% | — |
Math Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 32.1 (#219), Qwen3.8 Max: 73.2 (#20)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 37.8% | 100% |
| LMArena Math | 1373 | 1499 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 74.7% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 | — | 46.3% |
| ProofBench | — | 58% |
| Omni-MATH | 40.3% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 73.5% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 75.5% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 37.5 (#155), Qwen3.8 Max: 61.7 (#27)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 67.6% | 92.7% |
| LMArena Expert | 1351 | 1507 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 47.3% |
| MMLU-Pro | 72.3% | — |
| Confabulations | 26.1% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.1% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 53.8% | — |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 95.3% | — |
| MMLU | 87.2% | — |
| TriviaQA | 82.9% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
DeepSeek-V3: —, Qwen3.8 Max: 37.2 (#75)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1314 |
| Furniture Assembly | — | 20% |
Multilingual Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 48.5 (#143), Qwen3.8 Max: 56.7 (#18)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1358 | 1472 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1391 | 1538 |
| LMArena French | 1385 | 1503 |
| LMArena German | 1374 | 1483 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1333 | 1467 |
| LMArena Korean | 1319 | 1461 |
| LMArena Russian | 1373 | 1481 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1358 | 1492 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 72.8 (#130), Qwen3.8 Max: 77.6 (#17)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1345 | 1479 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 81.5% | — |
| IFEval | 83.2% | — |
Long Context Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 34.0 (#253), Qwen3.8 Max: 45.6 (#31)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1352 | 1489 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 50% | — |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 Max leads
DeepSeek-V3: 57.4 (#130), Qwen3.8 Max: 67.1 (#30)
| Benchmark | DeepSeek-V3 | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1375 | 1483 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1364 | 1479 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | 1489 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 77% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1472 | — |
| WildBench | 83% | — |
| LiveBench Language | 49.1% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is DeepSeek-V3 better than Qwen3.8 Max?
Qwen3.8 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 56.8 to 39.5 on the Noometry Index. DeepSeek-V3 costs 7.4× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-V3 or Qwen3.8 Max?
DeepSeek-V3 is cheaper. It lists at $0.24 per million input tokens and $0.90 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Max lists at $2 and $6.
Is DeepSeek-V3 or Qwen3.8 Max better for coding?
Qwen3.8 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 53.5 versus 42.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.8 Max does, with 1M tokens against 164K.
How many benchmarks do DeepSeek-V3 and Qwen3.8 Max share?
24 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek-V3 has 60 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 Max has 39.