Model comparison
Qwen Plus vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 14 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 14 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 2 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 6 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 37.6 to 23.3.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 63.3% for Qwen Plus and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 37.1 | 38.1 |
| Released | 2024-01-25 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 33K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 20 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen Plus leads
Qwen Plus: 38.9 (#167), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen Plus: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
Reasoning Qwen Plus leads
Qwen Plus: 28.4 (#107), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | 49.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | 1372 |
| DTBench | 81.1% | — |
| LMCA | 24% | — |
Math Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 23.3 (#271), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1326 | 1365 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#251), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 45.1 (#175), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1357 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | 1310 |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | 1366 |
| LMArena French | — | 1398 |
| LMArena German | — | 1325 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1305 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1360 |
Instruction Following Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 68.8 (#181), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | 1355 |
Long Context Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#158), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1324 | 1378 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads
Qwen Plus: 52.2 (#176), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 38.1 to 37.1 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
14 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.