Model comparison

GPT-5 Nano vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Nano costs 8.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 24 shared benchmarks.

GPT-5 Nano OpenAI

33.5

Rank #241 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #68 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 24 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-5 Nano scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 10 categories; 9 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 65.8 to 39.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is ARC-AGI-1: 20.7% for GPT-5 Nano and 87.5% for Qwen3.8 27B.
  • GPT-5 Nano is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.99 / $1.49 for Qwen3.8 27B.
  • GPT-5 Nano accepts more context: 400K tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.8 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-5 Nano and Qwen3.8 27B specifications
GPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index33.546.0
Released2025-08-072026-08-14
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window400K262K
Max output128K33K
Input $ / M tokens$0.05$0.99
Output $ / M tokens$0.40$1.49
Results tracked4931

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 33.6 (#254), Qwen3.8 27B: 50.5 (#44)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Coding13511482
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)34.8%—
LMArena WebDev—1593
SciCode—46.6%
WeirdML38.1%—
ALE-Bench718.67—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 25.8 (#106), Qwen3.8 27B: 32.9 (#57)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
Terminal-Bench21.8%—
APEX-Agents—47.5%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard51.5%—

Reasoning Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 16.3 (#306), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.0 (#54)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
ARC-AGI-22.6%42.4%
ARC-AGI-120.7%87.5%
LMArena Hard Prompts13281460
DTBench62.7%88%
LMCA7.9%41.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.38149.38
Kagi LLM Benchmark62.2%—
NYT Connections (extended)—54.5%
CritPt—5.4%
Chess Puzzles27%—
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
Surface Evolver Bench—45%
ForecastBench59.1—

Math Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 29.4 (#241), Qwen3.8 27B: 37.1 (#161)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
ProofBench12%16%
LMArena Math13171456
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)20%—
FrontierMath Tier 42.4%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202581.1%—
Omni-MATH54.6%—
MATH Level 595.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.3%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)2.1%—

Knowledge Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 35.9 (#178), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.6 (#109)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Expert13211482
GPQA Diamond69.4%—
SimpleQA Verified11.7%—
MMLU-Pro77.8%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%—
GPQA (HELM)67.9%—

Multimodal Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#108), Qwen3.8 27B: 41.3 (#37)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Vision11591271
VPCT37.2%—

Multilingual Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 45.3 (#172), Qwen3.8 27B: 53.7 (#60)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Non-English13131430
LMArena Chinese13561504
LMArena German13271438
LMArena Japanese12261384
LMArena Korean12691393
LMArena Russian12961415
LMArena Spanish13601448
LMArena French—1465

Instruction Following Too close to call

GPT-5 Nano: 75.0 (#79), Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#53)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Instruction Following13061439
IFEval93.2%—

Long Context Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 31.3 (#281), Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#70)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Longer Query13121450
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 27B leads

GPT-5 Nano: 39.1 (#249), Qwen3.8 27B: 65.8 (#43)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-5 NanoQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Text13201441
LMArena Creative Writing12491384
EQ-Bench Creative Writing7051671
LMArena Multi-Turn13111441
WildBench80.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-5 Nano better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 33.5 on the Noometry Index. GPT-5 Nano costs 8.1× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.8 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, GPT-5 Nano or Qwen3.8 27B?

GPT-5 Nano is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 27B lists at $0.99 and $1.49.

Is GPT-5 Nano or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.5 versus 33.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-5 Nano does, with 400K tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-5 Nano and Qwen3.8 27B share?

24 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-5 Nano has 49 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 31.

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