Model comparison
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Microsoft
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.6 Plus in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 62.2 to 31.1.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.3 | 47.5 |
| Released | 2024-04-23 | 2026-03-31 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |
| Context window | — | 1M |
| Max output | — | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | — | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | — | $3 |
| Results tracked | 32 | 37 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318), Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.8 (#130)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1101 | 1467 |
| SWE-bench Verified | — | 57.9% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1461 |
| SciCode | — | 40.7% |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 670.15 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —, Qwen3.6 Plus: —
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 5,115 |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323), Qwen3.6 Plus: 29.3 (#93)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | 1449 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 60.3% |
| CritPt | — | 2.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 17% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 59.5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 12% |
| DTBench | — | 81.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 33.1% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 147.65 |
| HellaSwag | 77% | — |
| LiveBench | 24% | — |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248), Qwen3.6 Plus: 51.8 (#54)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1450 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 38.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 93.3% |
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 26.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 8.3% |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240), Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#45)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | 1454 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 88.4% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 44.1% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | — |
| MMLU | 75.7% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272), Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.3 (#70)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | 1424 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | 1477 |
| LMArena French | 1135 | 1455 |
| LMArena German | 1080 | 1452 |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | 1389 |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | 1379 |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | 1434 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | 1432 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292), Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.0 (#74)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | 1425 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | — |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267), Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.2 (#49)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | 1439 |
| CL-bench | — | 20.3% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284), Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.2 (#82)
| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1437 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | 1404 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | 1438 |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.
Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Qwen3.6 Plus better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.
How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Qwen3.6 Plus share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 Plus has 37.