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.

Grok 4.1 Fast xAI

40.9

Rank #131 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.3

Rank #237 Confirmed

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 and Qwen3 8B specifications
Grok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
ProviderxAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index40.933.3
Released2025-06-272025-04
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window128K131K
Max output30K8K
Input $ / M tokens$0.20$0.18
Output $ / M tokens$0.50$0.70
Results tracked3211

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.8 (#236), Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
LMArena WebDev1241—
SciCode—22.6%
LMArena Coding1411—
ALE-Bench394.93—

Agentic & Tool Use Grok 4.1 Fast leads

Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.1 (#35), Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard69.6%42.6%
τ²-bench Banking13.1%—
LMArena Search1171—
Vending-Bench 21,107—

Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads

Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.3 (#45), Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
DTBench87.7%59.7%
SimpleBench56%—
NYT Connections (extended)87.4%—
CritPt—0%
Chess Puzzles—5%
LMArena Hard Prompts1407—
LMCA—8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index—136.17
ForecastBench61—

Math Qwen3 8B leads

Grok 4.1 Fast: 30.9 (#201), Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions60.9%—
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—56.1%
ProofBench4%—
LMArena Math1408—

Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads

Grok 4.1 Fast: 32.6 (#203), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
Vectara Hallucination Rate17.8%4.8%
GPQA Diamond—56.8%
LMArena Expert1398—

Multimodal Not comparable

Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#71), Qwen3 8B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
LMArena Vision1201—

Multilingual Not comparable

Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.1 (#110), Qwen3 8B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1391—
LMArena Chinese1441—
LMArena French1416—
LMArena German1404—
LMArena Japanese1347—
LMArena Korean1361—
LMArena Russian1387—
LMArena Spanish1411—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.8 (#127), Qwen3 8B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following1376—

Long Context Grok 4.1 Fast leads

Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#121), Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench—62.1%
LMArena Longer Query1390—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.4 (#126), Qwen3 8B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGrok 4.1 FastQwen3 8B
LMArena Text1408—
LMArena Creative Writing1394—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1327—
LMArena Multi-Turn1389—

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.

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