Model comparison
Qwen3 8B vs Step 3.5 Flash
Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 0 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)
StepFunSummary
- The widest gap is in coding, where Step 3.5 Flash leads 41.7 to 33.4.
- Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.18 / $0.70 for Qwen3 8B.
- Step 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 33.3 | 41.7 |
| Released | 2025-04 | 2026-01-29 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 256K |
| Max output | 8K | 256K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.18 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $0.70 | $0.30 |
| Results tracked | 11 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3 8B: 33.4 (#245), Step 3.5 Flash: 41.7 (#106)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 22.6% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1436 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: 29.9 (#71), Step 3.5 Flash: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 42.6% | — |
Reasoning Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3 8B: 16.1 (#299), Step 3.5 Flash: 21.2 (#202)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 5% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1411 |
| DTBench | 59.7% | — |
| LMCA | 8.8% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 136.17 | — |
Math Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3 8B: 33.3 (#176), Step 3.5 Flash: 40.6 (#77)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 56.1% | — |
| LMArena Math | — | 1408 |
Knowledge Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#164), Step 3.5 Flash: 39.0 (#127)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 56.8% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 4.8% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1422 |
Multilingual Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Step 3.5 Flash: 50.7 (#115)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1386 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1448 |
| LMArena French | — | 1421 |
| LMArena German | — | 1404 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1353 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1350 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1385 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1419 |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Step 3.5 Flash: 73.3 (#119)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1385 |
Long Context Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3 8B: 37.8 (#205), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#112)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 62.1% | — |
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1402 |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Qwen3 8B: —, Step 3.5 Flash: 59.0 (#108)
| Benchmark | Qwen3 8B | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1405 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3 8B better than Step 3.5 Flash?
Step 3.5 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.7 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 8B or Step 3.5 Flash?
Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Qwen3 8B lists at $0.18 and $0.70.
Is Qwen3 8B or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?
Step 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 33.4 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 3.5 Flash does, with 256K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3 8B and Step 3.5 Flash share?
0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3 8B has 11 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.