# Gemma 3 27B vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

> Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.7 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 30× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 18

## Summary

- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 8 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 42.0 to 27.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 40.4% for Gemma 3 27B and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 37.7 |
| Rank | 277 | 186 |
| Context | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $7.50 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | 1413 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | 49.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | 1372 |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| DTBench | 52.5% | — |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LMCA | 12.3% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1312 | 1364 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | — |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | 1337 |
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | — |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | 1345 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1368 | 1394 |
| LMArena German | 1362 | 1324 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | 1309 |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | 1307 |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | 1367 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | 1360 |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | 1356 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | 1379 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | 1356 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | 1365 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.7 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 30× 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, Gemma 3 27B or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.

### Is Gemma 3 27B or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 36.2 versus 22.1 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.