Model comparison
Llama 3-8B vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 25.3 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3-8B costs 8.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 22 shared benchmarks.
Meta
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 22 benchmarks with published results for both. Llama 3-8B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 7.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.9% for Llama 3-8B and 93.3% for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Llama 3-8B is cheaper at $0.14 / $0.14 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $3 for Qwen3.6 Plus.
- Qwen3.6 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 8K.
- Llama 3-8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.3 | 47.3 |
| Released | 2024-04-18 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | 8K | 1M |
| Max output | 8K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.14 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.14 | $3 |
| Results tracked | 34 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 30.5 (#285), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.6 (#125)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1152 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 31.9% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 36.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
| HumanEval+ | 56.7% | — |
| MBPP+ | 54.8% | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Llama 3-8B: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 13.8 (#321), Qwen3.6 Plus: 28.5 (#89)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 17% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1133 | 1449 |
| DTBench | 43.9% | 81.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 116.33 | 147.67 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Adversarial NLI | 57.3% | — |
| ForecastBench | 58.6 | — |
| WinoGrande | 75.7% | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 8.3 (#317), Qwen3.6 Plus: 50.6 (#44)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.9% | 93.3% |
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| MATH Level 5 | 6.1% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 7.8 (#303), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#40)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 26.1% | 88.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1113 | 1456 |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 82.8% | — |
| MMLU | 68.8% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 82.6% | — |
| TriviaQA | 67.7% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 31.0 (#256), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.5 (#66)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1098 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1076 | 1478 |
| LMArena French | 1158 | 1454 |
| LMArena German | 1104 | 1451 |
| LMArena Japanese | 967 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 1003 | 1381 |
| LMArena Russian | 1109 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1172 | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 58.7 (#255), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.2 (#70)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1127 | 1425 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 34.2 (#246), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.1 (#48)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1128 | 1440 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Llama 3-8B: 37.7 (#251), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.4 (#78)
| Benchmark | Llama 3-8B | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1166 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1150 | 1405 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1152 | 1438 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Llama 3-8B better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 25.3 on the Noometry Index. Llama 3-8B costs 8.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.6 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Llama 3-8B or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Llama 3-8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.14 per million input tokens and $0.14 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus lists at $0.50 and $3.
Is Llama 3-8B or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.6 versus 30.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 8K.
How many benchmarks do Llama 3-8B and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
22 benchmarks have published results for both models. Llama 3-8B has 34 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.