# Gemma 2 9B vs Qwen3 8B

> Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-2-9b-vs-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 3

## Summary

- They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 2 9B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3 8B in 5 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3 8B leads 36.1 to 9.7.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 0.6% for Gemma 2 9B and 56.1% for Qwen3 8B.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 25.9 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 341 | 238 |
| Context | — | 131K |
| Input $/M | — | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.70 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 2 9B: 29.4 (#304)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 22.6% |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 34.7% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 22.5% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1173 | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 40.6% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 2 9B: —
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 2 9B: 15.9 (#309)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 119.83 | 136.17 |
| CritPt | — | 0% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.2% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1171 | — |
| DTBench | — | 59.7% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 36.4% | — |
| LMCA | — | 8.8% |
| LiveBench | 28.7% | — |
| PIQA | 83.7% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 2 9B: 9.9 (#318)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 0.6% | 56.1% |
| LiveBench Math | 19.8% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1183 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 21% | — |
| GSM8K | 84.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 2 9B: 9.7 (#305)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 27.5% | 56.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1147 | — |
| BoolQ | 85.7% | — |
| MMLU | 72.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 2 9B: 36.6 (#238)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1188 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1185 | — |
| LMArena French | 1190 | — |
| LMArena German | 1186 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1144 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1137 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1200 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1200 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 2 9B: 57.6 (#269)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 52.6% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1178 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 2 9B: 36.3 (#233)
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1197 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 2 9B: 32.1 (#281)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 2 9B | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1207 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1206 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 841 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1193 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 25.5% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 2 9B better than Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.7 to 25.9 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Gemma 2 9B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Qwen3 8B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.0 versus 29.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 2 9B and Qwen3 8B share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 2 9B has 35 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.