Model comparison
Grok 4.1 Fast vs Qwen3 Max
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.1 Fast costs 8.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 21 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 21 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.1 Fast scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3 Max in 6 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.1 Fast leads 43.4 to 22.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is NYT Connections (extended): 87.4% for Grok 4.1 Fast and 30.1% for Qwen3 Max.
- Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper at $0.20 / $0.50 per million input/output tokens, against $1.20 / $6 for Qwen3 Max.
- Qwen3 Max accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.
Side by side
| Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 43.7 |
| Released | 2025-06-27 | 2025-09-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 262K |
| Max output | 30K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $1.20 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $6 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 33 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 34.1 (#245), Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1411 | 1456 |
| ALE-Bench | 394.93 | 370.45 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1242 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#39), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,107 | 71.56 |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 69.6% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.1% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1171 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 43.4 (#49), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.4% | 30.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1448 |
| DTBench | 87.7% | 82.1% |
| SimpleBench | 56% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 72.5% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 4% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMCA | — | 28.3% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 142.38 |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 31.9 (#221), Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1408 | 1446 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.9% |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 60.9% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 73.3% |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | — | 97.1% |
Knowledge Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.1 (#207), Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1399 | 1455 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 72.6% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 48.7% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.8% | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 37.0 (#76), Qwen3 Max: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1201 | — |
Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.0 (#114), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1391 | 1429 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1441 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1415 | 1449 |
| LMArena German | 1404 | 1463 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1349 | 1397 |
| LMArena Korean | 1361 | 1399 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1428 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1413 | 1462 |
Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.7 (#133), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | 1419 |
Long Context Too close to call
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#126), Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1390 | 1438 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 66.7% |
| CL-bench | — | 14.5% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.2 (#131), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3 Max |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1408 | 1439 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1394 | 1402 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | 1446 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1327 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.1 Fast better than Qwen3 Max?
Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.1 Fast costs 8.7× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 Max's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3 Max?
Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper. It lists at $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Max lists at $1.20 and $6.
Is Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3 Max better for coding?
Qwen3 Max scores higher on coding benchmarks: 43.0 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3 Max does, with 262K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.1 Fast and Qwen3 Max share?
21 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.1 Fast has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.