Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen Max vs Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.3 to 34.4 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.

Qwen Max Alibaba (Qwen)

34.4

Rank #226 Confirmed

Qwen3.8 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

45.3

Rank #64 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Max scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.8 27B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Qwen3.8 27B leads 50.3 to 30.3.
  • Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper at $0.99 / $1.49 per million input/output tokens, against $1.60 / $6.40 for Qwen Max.
  • Qwen3.8 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 33K.
  • Qwen3.8 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index34.445.3
Released2024-04-032026-08-14
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window33K262K
Max output8K33K
Input $ / M tokens$1.60$0.99
Output $ / M tokens$6.40$1.49
Results tracked2328

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 30.3 (#288), Qwen3.8 27B: 50.3 (#42)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Coding12881487
Aider Polyglot21.8%—
LMArena WebDev—1592
SciCode—46.6%

Reasoning Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 24.1 (#154), Qwen3.8 27B: 31.5 (#71)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Hard Prompts12701459
NYT Connections (extended)—54.5%
CritPt—5.4%
DTBench—88%
LMCA—41.4%
Surface Evolver Bench—45%
Epoch Capabilities Index—149.38

Math Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 21.0 (#272), Qwen3.8 27B: 35.7 (#139)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Math12751453
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202516.1%—
ProofBench—16%
MATH Level 567.2%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)1%—

Knowledge Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 30.3 (#222), Qwen3.8 27B: 40.9 (#105)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Expert12481482
GPQA Diamond56.1%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Qwen Max: —, Qwen3.8 27B: 40.5 (#36)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Vision—1270

Multilingual Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 42.0 (#197), Qwen3.8 27B: 54.0 (#54)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Non-English12631431
LMArena Chinese12541504
LMArena French13291468
LMArena German12541435
LMArena Japanese12051392
LMArena Korean11411389
LMArena Russian12741421
LMArena Spanish12901444

Instruction Following Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 66.7 (#203), Qwen3.8 27B: 75.8 (#54)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Instruction Following12621436

Long Context Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 39.4 (#175), Qwen3.8 27B: 44.3 (#66)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Longer Query12891448
Fiction.LiveBench66.7%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3.8 27B leads

Qwen Max: 48.0 (#200), Qwen3.8 27B: 65.9 (#41)

BenchmarkQwen MaxQwen3.8 27B
LMArena Text12821441
LMArena Creative Writing12481382
LMArena Multi-Turn12771443
EQ-Bench Creative Writing—1671

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen Max better than Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.3 to 34.4 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Qwen Max or Qwen3.8 27B?

Qwen3.8 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.99 per million input tokens and $1.49 per million output tokens; Qwen Max lists at $1.60 and $6.40.

Is Qwen Max or Qwen3.8 27B better for coding?

Qwen3.8 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 50.3 versus 30.3 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.8 27B does, with 262K tokens against 33K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen Max and Qwen3.8 27B share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Max has 23 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.8 27B has 28.

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