Model comparison

GPT-5.6 Luna vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

GPT-5.6 Luna is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5.6 Luna OpenAI

54.6

Rank #30 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5.6 Luna scores higher in 9 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 0 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where GPT-5.6 Luna leads 77.7 to 37.6.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is WeirdML: 60.9% for GPT-5.6 Luna and 41.2% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
  • GPT-5.6 Luna is cheaper at $0.20 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
  • GPT-5.6 Luna accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5.6 Luna and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct specifications
GPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index54.638.1
Released2026-07-092025-04
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M262K
Max output128K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.20$1.50
Output $ / M tokens$1.20$7.50
Results tracked5225

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Category by category

Coding GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 54.5 (#28), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena WebDev15191275
WeirdML60.9%41.2%
LMArena Coding14661412
ALE-Bench1,667461.45
DeepSWE67.2%—
FrontierCode39.8%—
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)—55.4%
CursorBench35.9%—
SciCode53.6%—
GSO—4.9%
AlgoTune—1.44

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 34.4 (#45), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Terminal-Bench—27.2%
APEX-Agents43%—
BALROG45.6%—
GDP.pdf22.7%—
Vending-Bench 24,095—

Reasoning GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 47.6 (#43), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Kagi LLM Benchmark49.1%49.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts14511372
ARC-AGI-259.5%—
SimpleBench46.8%—
NYT Connections (extended)69.4%—
ARC-AGI-188%—
CritPt20.6%—
Chess Puzzles40%—
Mystery Game Puzzles21%—
DTBench89.1%—
LMCA48.5%—
Surface Evolver Bench61.9%—
Epoch Capabilities Index156.39—

Math GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 77.7 (#14), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Math14581365
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)82.1%—
FrontierMath Tier 461%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202598.3%—
ProofBench60%—

Knowledge GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 58.5 (#34), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Expert14781338
GPQA Diamond91.6%—
SimpleQA Verified41%—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-5.6 Luna: 42.7 (#28), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Vision1258—
Blueprint-Bench 222.6%—
Furniture Assembly42.5%—
LMArena Document1457—

Multilingual GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 52.8 (#78), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Non-English14171346
LMArena Chinese14701357
LMArena French14561398
LMArena German14541325
LMArena Japanese14111310
LMArena Korean14151305
LMArena Russian14281366
LMArena Spanish14481360

Instruction Following GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 75.6 (#57), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Instruction Following14371355

Long Context GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 43.9 (#82), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Longer Query14361378

Writing & Preference GPT-5.6 Luna leads

GPT-5.6 Luna: 68.0 (#29), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5.6 LunaQwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
LMArena Text14311357
LMArena Creative Writing13961333
LMArena Multi-Turn14341365
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1829—
EQ-Bench 41156—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5.6 Luna better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

GPT-5.6 Luna is the stronger model overall, scoring 54.6 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

GPT-5.6 Luna is cheaper. It lists at $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

Is GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

GPT-5.6 Luna scores higher on coding benchmarks: 54.5 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5.6 Luna does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5.6 Luna and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

21 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5.6 Luna has 52 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.

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