Model comparison

gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3 32B

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 36.3 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 32B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 25 shared benchmarks.

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.3

Rank #217 Confirmed

Qwen3 32B Alibaba (Qwen)

39.2

Rank #172 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 25 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-120b scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3 32B in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Qwen3 32B leads 32.6 to 12.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Fiction.LiveBench: 44.4% for gpt-oss-120b and 74.2% for Qwen3 32B.
  • gpt-oss-120b is cheaper at $0.037 / $0.17 per million input/output tokens, against $0.70 / $2.80 for Qwen3 32B.

Side by side

gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3 32B specifications
gpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index36.339.2
Released2025-08-052025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K131K
Max output41K16K
Input $ / M tokens$0.037$0.70
Output $ / M tokens$0.17$2.80
Results tracked4826

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 32B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 33.5 (#256), Qwen3 32B: 37.7 (#190)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
Aider Polyglot41.8%40%
SciCode36%35.4%
LMArena Coding13801358
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)26%—
WeirdML48.2%—
ALE-Bench575.62—
AlgoTune1.41—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3 32B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 12.2 (#153), Qwen3 32B: 32.6 (#62)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
Terminal-Bench18.7%—
APEX-Agents4.4%—
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—48.7%
METR Time Horizons56.6%—
Vending-Bench 2-21.53—

Reasoning Too close to call

gpt-oss-120b: 20.0 (#245), Qwen3 32B: 20.2 (#241)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
Kagi LLM Benchmark58.6%54.9%
CritPt1.1%0.3%
Chess Puzzles20%5%
LMArena Hard Prompts13641334
DTBench76.3%67.5%
LMCA22.1%17.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.93138.51
SimpleBench22.1%—
Mystery Game Puzzles2%—
Surface Evolver Bench25%—

Math gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 52.5 (#50), Qwen3 32B: 39.7 (#99)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202588.9%66.9%
LMArena Math13891399
Omni-MATH68.8%—

Knowledge gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 42.4 (#96), Qwen3 32B: 40.0 (#125)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
GPQA Diamond75.8%65.7%
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%5.9%
LMArena Expert13561362
MMLU-Pro79.5%—
Confabulations15.7%—
GPQA (HELM)68.4%—

Multilingual gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 48.0 (#147), Qwen3 32B: 45.6 (#167)

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
LMArena Non-English13511317
LMArena Chinese13851357
LMArena German13531341
LMArena Russian13431311
LMArena French1369—
LMArena Japanese1331—
LMArena Korean1282—
LMArena Spanish1389—

Instruction Following Too close to call

gpt-oss-120b: 69.3 (#173), Qwen3 32B: 68.9 (#179)

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
LMArena Instruction Following13181305
IFEval83.6%—

Long Context Qwen3 32B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#278), Qwen3 32B: 43.8 (#87)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%74.2%
LMArena Longer Query13191327

Writing & Preference Qwen3 32B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 46.5 (#217), Qwen3 32B: 52.9 (#163)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3 32B
LMArena Text13651340
LMArena Creative Writing12751297
LMArena Multi-Turn13401331
Short-Story Creative Writing77.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing961—
WildBench84.5%—

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-120b better than Qwen3 32B?

Qwen3 32B is the stronger model overall, scoring 39.2 to 36.3 on the Noometry Index. gpt-oss-120b costs 17× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 32B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3 32B?

gpt-oss-120b is cheaper. It lists at $0.037 per million input tokens and $0.17 per million output tokens; Qwen3 32B lists at $0.70 and $2.80.

Is gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3 32B better for coding?

Qwen3 32B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.7 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 131K tokens.

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3 32B share?

25 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-120b has 48 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 32B has 26.

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