Model comparison
Llama 3.1-8B vs Qwen3.5 Plus
Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 6 shared benchmarks.
Meta
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3.1-8B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 47.9 to 9.5.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.7% for Llama 3.1-8B and 86.7% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper at $0.05 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 128K.
- Llama 3.1-8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 22.8 | 42.3 |
| Released | 2024-07-23 | 2026-02-16 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 128K | 1M |
| Max output | 4K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.05 | $0.40 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.08 | $2.40 |
| Results tracked | 43 | 15 |
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Category by category
Coding Not comparable
Llama 3.1-8B: 19.9 (#335), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 13.2% | — |
| WeirdML | 1.7% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 32.8% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1195 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 40.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 621.92 |
| HumanEval+ | 62.8% | — |
| MBPP+ | 55.6% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Llama 3.1-8B: 22.3 (#123), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 25.8% | — |
| BALROG | 15.1% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 0.54 |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Llama 3.1-8B: 14.5 (#316), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.0 (#67)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 22% |
| DTBench | 50.9% | 80.5% |
| LMCA | 5.4% | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 116.48 | 146.79 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1175 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 17% |
| PIQA | 81.2% | — |
Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Llama 3.1-8B: 9.5 (#311), Qwen3.5 Plus: 47.9 (#55)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.7% | 86.7% |
| Omni-MATH | 13.7% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1179 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 22.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 2.1% |
| GSM8K | 82.4% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Llama 3.1-8B: 8.0 (#302), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#78)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 27% | 84.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 25.4% |
| MMLU-Pro | 40.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.7% |
| GPQA (HELM) | 24.7% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1144 | — |
| BoolQ | 82.8% | — |
| MMLU | 56.1% | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Llama 3.1-8B: 34.2 (#244), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1148 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1151 | — |
| LMArena French | 1176 | — |
| LMArena German | 1144 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1061 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1053 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1158 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1169 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Llama 3.1-8B: 59.1 (#253), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| IFEval | 74.3% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1159 | — |
Long Context Qwen3.5 Plus leads
Llama 3.1-8B: 35.8 (#233), Qwen3.5 Plus: 42.9 (#109)
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1182 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Llama 3.1-8B: 29.9 (#285), Qwen3.5 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3.1-8B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1187 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1154 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 713 | — |
| WildBench | 68.7% | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1172 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Llama 3.1-8B better than Qwen3.5 Plus?
Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 22.8 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3.1-8B costs 16× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Llama 3.1-8B or Qwen3.5 Plus?
Llama 3.1-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.05 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 128K.
How many benchmarks do Llama 3.1-8B and Qwen3.5 Plus share?
6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3.1-8B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.