# Claude 2.1 vs Qwen3 8B

> Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/claude-2-1-vs-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 4

## Summary

- They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Claude 2.1 scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3 8B in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3 8B leads 34.9 to 10.2.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 1.9% for Claude 2.1 and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Anthropic | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.2 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 345 | 238 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.70 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Claude 2.1: 26.2 (#327)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| WeirdML | 7.1% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Claude 2.1: —
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |

## Reasoning

- Claude 2.1: 21.4 (#221)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| DTBench | 51% | 59.7% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.27 | 136.17 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| ForecastBench | 54.2 | — |

## Math

- Claude 2.1: 10.2 (#315)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 1.9% | 56.1% |

## Knowledge

- Claude 2.1: 15.4 (#292)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 33% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| MMLU | 73.5% | — |

## Long Context

- Claude 2.1: —
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Claude 2.1 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |

## FAQ

### Is Claude 2.1 better than Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.2 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Claude 2.1 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.0 versus 26.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Claude 2.1 and Qwen3 8B share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Claude 2.1 has 7 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.