Model comparison
Grok 4.1 Fast vs Qwen3 8B
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.
Summary
- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.1 Fast scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.1 Fast leads 42.3 to 16.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 87.7% for Grok 4.1 Fast and 59.7% for Qwen3 8B.
- Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper at $0.20 / $0.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 40.9 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2025-06-27 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 131K |
| Max output | 30K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.8 (#236), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1241 | — |
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1411 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 394.93 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.1 (#35), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 69.6% | 42.6% |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.1% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1171 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,107 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.3 (#45), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 87.7% | 59.7% |
| SimpleBench | 56% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.4% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | — |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 30.9 (#201), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 60.9% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1408 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 32.6 (#203), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.8% | 4.8% |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1398 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#71), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1201 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.1 (#110), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1391 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1441 | — |
| LMArena French | 1416 | — |
| LMArena German | 1404 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1361 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1411 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.8 (#127), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | — |
Long Context Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#121), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1390 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.4 (#126), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1408 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1394 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1327 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.1 Fast better than Qwen3 8B?
Grok 4.1 Fast is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.9 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3 8B?
Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper. It lists at $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.
Is Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (33.8 vs 33.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 8B does, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.1 Fast and Qwen3 8B share?
3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.1 Fast has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.