Model comparison

Molmo 2 8b vs Qwen3 Max

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3 Max Alibaba (Qwen)

43.7

Rank #87 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Molmo 2 8b scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 Max in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3 Max leads 62.4 to 49.4.
  • Molmo 2 8b has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Molmo 2 8b and Qwen3 Max specifications
Molmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
ProviderAllen Institute for AI (Ai2)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index39.143.7
Released—2025-09-23
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window—262K
Max output—66K
Input $ / M tokens—$1.20
Output $ / M tokens—$6
Results tracked533

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: —, Qwen3 Max: 43.0 (#93)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Coding—1456
ALE-Bench—370.45

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: —, Qwen3 Max: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
Vending-Bench 2—71.56

Reasoning Molmo 2 8b leads

Molmo 2 8b: 25.6 (#146), Qwen3 Max: 22.6 (#190)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Hard Prompts12871448
Kagi LLM Benchmark—72.5%
NYT Connections (extended)—30.1%
Chess Puzzles—4%
Mystery Game Puzzles—5%
DTBench—82.1%
LMCA—28.3%
Epoch Capabilities Index—142.38

Math Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: —, Qwen3 Max: 38.7 (#131)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.9%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—73.3%
LMArena Math—1446
MATH Level 5—97.1%

Knowledge Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: —, Qwen3 Max: 48.1 (#78)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
GPQA Diamond—72.6%
SimpleQA Verified—48.7%
LMArena Expert—1455

Multimodal Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: 30.2 (#112), Qwen3 Max: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Vision1081—

Multilingual Qwen3 Max leads

Molmo 2 8b: 42.7 (#190), Qwen3 Max: 53.7 (#62)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Non-English12761429
LMArena Chinese—1478
LMArena French—1449
LMArena German—1463
LMArena Japanese—1397
LMArena Korean—1399
LMArena Russian—1428
LMArena Spanish—1462

Instruction Following Qwen3 Max leads

Molmo 2 8b: 67.0 (#201), Qwen3 Max: 74.8 (#87)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Instruction Following12701419

Long Context Not comparable

Molmo 2 8b: —, Qwen3 Max: 41.6 (#134)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
Fiction.LiveBench—66.7%
CL-bench—14.5%
LMArena Longer Query—1438

Writing & Preference Qwen3 Max leads

Molmo 2 8b: 49.4 (#191), Qwen3 Max: 62.4 (#76)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkMolmo 2 8bQwen3 Max
LMArena Text12881439
LMArena Creative Writing—1402
LMArena Multi-Turn—1446

Frequently asked questions

Is Molmo 2 8b better than Qwen3 Max?

Qwen3 Max is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.7 to 39.1 on the Noometry Index.

How many benchmarks do Molmo 2 8b and Qwen3 Max share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Molmo 2 8b has 5 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 Max has 33.

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