Model comparison

Qwen3 235B-A22B vs Step 3

Qwen3 235B-A22B is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 16 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3 235B-A22B Alibaba (Qwen)

43.5

Rank #91 Confirmed

Step 3 StepFun

40.5

Rank #149 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 16 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3 235B-A22B scores higher in 7 categories and Step 3 in 1 category; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 235B-A22B leads 49.6 to 36.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 69.4% for Qwen3 235B-A22B and 62.3% for Step 3.

Side by side

Qwen3 235B-A22B and Step 3 specifications
Qwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)StepFun
Noometry Index43.540.5
Released2025-04—
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K—
Max output16K—
Input $ / M tokens$0.70—
Output $ / M tokens$2.80—
Results tracked4917

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 44.3 (#75), Step 3: 40.1 (#147)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Coding14451367
Aider Polyglot59.6%—
SciCode42.4%—
WeirdML41%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 33.9 (#51), Step 3: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard52.1%—
Vending-Bench 2-11.34—

Reasoning Step 3 leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 15.7 (#311), Step 3: 28.4 (#105)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%62.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts14331355
ARC-AGI-21.3%—
SimpleBench31%—
ARC-AGI-111%—
CritPt0%—
Chess Puzzles12%—
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
DTBench80.3%—
LMCA29.3%—
Epoch Capabilities Index143.85—
ForecastBench59.7—

Math Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 50.4 (#57), Step 3: 37.6 (#148)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Math14321366
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202586.7%—
Omni-MATH71.8%—
MATH Level 568.9%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.5%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—

Knowledge Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 49.6 (#73), Step 3: 36.8 (#164)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Expert14631333
GPQA Diamond80.1%—
SimpleQA Verified40.4%—
MMLU-Pro84.4%—
Confabulations15.6%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%—
GPQA (HELM)72.7%—

Multimodal Not comparable

Qwen3 235B-A22B: —, Step 3: 35.5 (#86)

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Vision—1177

Multilingual Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 52.3 (#89), Step 3: 46.3 (#159)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Non-English14091327
LMArena Chinese14811397
LMArena German14331371
LMArena Korean13911269
LMArena Russian14111331
LMArena Spanish14301371
LMArena French1445—
LMArena Japanese1399—

Instruction Following Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 72.6 (#136), Step 3: 70.4 (#164)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Instruction Following14081332
IFEval83.5%—

Long Context Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 46.1 (#26), Step 3: 40.3 (#157)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Longer Query14261326
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 59.6 (#108), Step 3: 54.3 (#151)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BStep 3
LMArena Text14191350
LMArena Creative Writing13841321
LMArena Multi-Turn14321341
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1366—
WildBench86.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3 235B-A22B better than Step 3?

Qwen3 235B-A22B is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 40.5 on the Noometry Index.

Is Qwen3 235B-A22B or Step 3 better for coding?

Qwen3 235B-A22B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 44.3 versus 40.1 in the Noometry coding category.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3 235B-A22B and Step 3 share?

16 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3 235B-A22B has 49 scored results on Noometry and Step 3 has 17.

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