Model comparison
Grok 4.1 Fast vs Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.1 Fast costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok 4.1 Fast scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Grok 4.1 Fast leads 43.4 to 31.1.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Vectara Hallucination Rate: 17.8% for Grok 4.1 Fast and 9.3% for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct.
- Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper at $0.20 / $0.50 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct accepts more context: 131K tokens versus 128K.
- Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.4 | 43.0 |
| Released | 2025-06-27 | 2025-09 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 128K | 131K |
| Max output | 30K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.20 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $2 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 34.1 (#245), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 42.5 (#98)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1411 | 1440 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1242 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 394.93 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 36.3 (#39), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 69.6% | — |
| τ²-bench Banking | 13.1% | — |
| LMArena Search | 1171 | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 1,107 | — |
Reasoning Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 43.4 (#49), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 31.1 (#81)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | 1428 |
| SimpleBench | 56% | — |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 66.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 87.4% | — |
| DTBench | 87.7% | — |
| ForecastBench | 61 | — |
Math Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 31.9 (#221), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 38.8 (#126)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1408 | 1440 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 60.9% | — |
| ProofBench | 4% | — |
| Omni-MATH | — | 46.7% |
Knowledge Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 33.1 (#207), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.8 (#106)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 17.8% | 9.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1399 | 1417 |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 78.6% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 63% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Grok 4.1 Fast: 37.0 (#76), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1201 | — |
Multilingual Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 51.0 (#114), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.1 (#93)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1391 | 1407 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1441 | 1460 |
| LMArena French | 1415 | 1413 |
| LMArena German | 1404 | 1417 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1349 | 1395 |
| LMArena Korean | 1361 | 1364 |
| LMArena Russian | 1387 | 1404 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1413 | 1435 |
Instruction Following Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 72.7 (#133), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 70.8 (#159)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | 1389 |
| IFEval | — | 81% |
Long Context Grok 4.1 Fast leads
Grok 4.1 Fast: 42.4 (#126), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#223)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1390 | 1403 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 55.6% |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Grok 4.1 Fast: 57.2 (#131), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.0 (#121)
| Benchmark | Grok 4.1 Fast | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1408 | 1417 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1394 | 1334 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1389 | 1416 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1327 | — |
| WildBench | — | 80.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Grok 4.1 Fast better than Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 41.4 on the Noometry Index. Grok 4.1 Fast costs 3.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct?
Grok 4.1 Fast is cheaper. It lists at $0.20 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct lists at $0.50 and $2.
Is Grok 4.1 Fast or Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.5 versus 34.1 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct does, with 131K tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Grok 4.1 Fast and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok 4.1 Fast has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25.