# Grok-3 mini vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct

> Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/grok-3-mini-vs-qwen3-coder-480b-a35b-instruct
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 19

## Summary

- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Grok-3 mini scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 3 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct leads 25.5 to 13.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is Kagi LLM Benchmark: 61.3% for Grok-3 mini and 49.5% for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | xAI | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.2 | 38.1 |
| Rank | 141 | 190 |
| Context | — | 262K |
| Input $/M | — | $1.50 |
| Output $/M | — | $7.50 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Grok-3 mini: 40.8 (#131)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 35.5 (#223)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| WeirdML | 42.6% | 41.2% |
| LMArena Coding | 1379 | 1412 |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| Aider Polyglot | 49.3% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1275 |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| ALE-Bench | — | 461.45 |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Grok-3 mini: —
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.9 (#123)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |

## Reasoning

- Grok-3 mini: 13.6 (#334)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 25.5 (#149)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 61.3% | 49.5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1375 | 1372 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 0.4% | — |
| ARC-AGI-1 | 16.5% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 140.35 | — |

## Math

- Grok-3 mini: 42.1 (#85)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.6 (#150)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1386 | 1365 |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 77.8% | — |
| Omni-MATH | 31.8% | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 90.9% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 5.9% | — |

## Knowledge

- Grok-3 mini: 46.4 (#81)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 37.0 (#162)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1395 | 1338 |
| GPQA Diamond | 76.3% | — |
| MMLU-Pro | 79.9% | — |
| Confabulations | 10.8% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 67.5% | — |

## Multilingual

- Grok-3 mini: 48.1 (#145)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.7 (#148)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1352 | 1346 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1387 | 1357 |
| LMArena French | 1357 | 1398 |
| LMArena German | 1349 | 1325 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1342 | 1310 |
| LMArena Korean | 1335 | 1305 |
| LMArena Russian | 1353 | 1366 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1381 | 1360 |

## Instruction Following

- Grok-3 mini: 78.5 (#9)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.6 (#147)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1357 | 1355 |
| IFEval | 95.1% | — |

## Long Context

- Grok-3 mini: 41.0 (#147)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#131)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1372 | 1378 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 66.7% | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Grok-3 mini: 52.5 (#169)
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.3 (#147)

| Benchmark | Grok-3 mini | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1370 | 1357 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1342 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1355 | 1365 |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 73.5% | — |
| WildBench | 65.1% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Grok-3 mini better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?

Grok-3 mini is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.2 to 38.1 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Grok-3 mini or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?

Grok-3 mini scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.8 versus 35.5 in the Noometry coding category.

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

19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Grok-3 mini has 35 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.