Model comparison
Gemma 3 27B vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 3.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.
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Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 5 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in coding, where Qwen3 8B leads 33.4 to 22.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
Side by side
| Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2025-03-11 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 131K |
| Max output | 8K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.16 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 43 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 21.2% | 22.6% |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | 42.6% |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 0% | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 5% |
| DTBench | 52.5% | 59.7% |
| LMCA | 12.3% | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | 136.17 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | 56.1% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | 4.8% |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena French | 1368 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | — |
Long Context Qwen3 8B leads
Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemma 3 27B better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 3.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 8B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Qwen3 8B?
Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.
Is Gemma 3 27B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 33.4 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Both accept 131K tokens.
How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Qwen3 8B share?
11 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.