Model comparison
Qwen Plus vs Qwen3 8B
Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3 8B in 2 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen Plus leads 28.4 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 17.8% for Qwen Plus and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.20 for Qwen Plus.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 33.7 |
| Released | 2024-01-25 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 131K |
| Max output | 33K | 8K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $0.18 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $0.70 |
| Results tracked | 20 | 11 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen Plus leads
Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen Plus: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
Reasoning Qwen Plus leads
Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 81.1% | 59.7% |
| LMCA | 24% | 8.8% |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 136.17 |
Math Qwen3 8B leads
Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | 56.1% |
| LMArena Math | 1326 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3 8B leads
Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | — |
Long Context Qwen Plus leads
Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176), Qwen3 8B: —
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3 8B?
Qwen Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 1.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3 8B?
Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen Plus lists at $0.40 and $1.20.
Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3 8B better for coding?
Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Qwen3 8B share?
4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.