Model comparison
Gemma 2 9B vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Google
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 9B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 8B in 5 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 9.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 0.6% for Gemma 2 9B and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
Side by side
| Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | |
| Noometry Index | 25.9 | 33.7 |
| Released | 2024-06-24 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | — | 131K |
| Max output | — | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 35 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 2 9B: 29.4 (#304), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 34.7% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 22.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1173 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 40.6% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Gemma 2 9B: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemma 2 9B: 15.9 (#309), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.83 | 136.17 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.2% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1171 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 36.4% | — |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| LiveBench | 28.7% | — |
| PIQA | 83.7% | — |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 2 9B: 9.9 (#318), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 0.6% | 56.1% |
| LiveBench Math | 19.8% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1183 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 21% | — |
| GSM8K | 84.9% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 2 9B: 9.7 (#305), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 27.5% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1147 | — |
| BoolQ | 85.7% | — |
| MMLU | 72.1% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemma 2 9B: 36.6 (#238), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1188 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1185 | — |
| LMArena French | 1190 | — |
| LMArena German | 1186 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1144 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1137 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1200 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1200 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Gemma 2 9B: 57.6 (#269), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 52.6% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1178 | — |
Long Context Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 2 9B: 36.3 (#233), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1197 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Gemma 2 9B: 32.1 (#281), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1207 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1206 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 841 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1193 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 25.5% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 2 9B better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.
Is Gemma 2 9B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.0 versus 29.4 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 9B and Qwen3 8B share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 9B has 35 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.