# Muse Spark 1.2 vs Qwen3 8B

> Muse Spark 1.2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Muse Spark 1.2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/muse-spark-1-2-vs-qwen3-8b
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 5

## Summary

- They share 5 benchmarks with published results for both. Muse Spark 1.2 scores higher in 5 categories and Qwen3 8B in 1 category; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Muse Spark 1.2 leads 51.3 to 16.6.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is LMCA: 48.4% for Muse Spark 1.2 and 8.8% for Qwen3 8B.
- Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $1.25 / $4.25 for Muse Spark 1.2.
- Muse Spark 1.2 accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 131K.
- Qwen3 8B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Meta | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 50.3 | 33.7 |
| Rank | 48 | 238 |
| Context | 1.05M | 131K |
| Input $/M | $1.25 | $0.18 |
| Output $/M | $4.25 | $0.70 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Muse Spark 1.2: 49.2 (#51)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 56.4% | 22.6% |
| DeepSWE | 54.9% | — |
| LMArena WebDev | 1533 | — |
| FrontierSWE | 12% | — |
| WeirdML | 60.3% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1495 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Muse Spark 1.2: 29.4 (#87)
- Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | 36.4% | — |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | — | 42.6% |
| GDP.pdf | 16% | — |

## Reasoning

- Muse Spark 1.2: 51.3 (#34)
- Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 17.7% | 0% |
| DTBench | 94.7% | 59.7% |
| LMCA | 48.4% | 8.8% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 154.87 | 136.17 |
| SimpleBench | 74.5% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 79.2% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 5% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1486 | — |

## Math

- Muse Spark 1.2: 46.4 (#70)
- Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 56.1% |
| ProofBench | 43% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1471 | — |

## Knowledge

- Muse Spark 1.2: 54.1 (#53)
- Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 56.8% |
| SimpleQA Verified | 60.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 4.8% |
| LMArena Expert | 1480 | — |

## Multimodal

- Muse Spark 1.2: 43.4 (#25)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1305 | — |

## Multilingual

- Muse Spark 1.2: 57.1 (#11)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1478 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1511 | — |
| LMArena French | 1513 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1487 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1498 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Muse Spark 1.2: 76.7 (#36)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1461 | — |

## Long Context

- Muse Spark 1.2: 45.2 (#48)
- Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 62.1% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1475 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Muse Spark 1.2: 72.3 (#14)
- Qwen3 8B: —

| Benchmark | Muse Spark 1.2 | Qwen3 8B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1482 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1449 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1840 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1494 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Muse Spark 1.2 better than Qwen3 8B?

Muse Spark 1.2 is the stronger model overall, scoring 50.3 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 6.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Muse Spark 1.2's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Muse Spark 1.2 or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Muse Spark 1.2 lists at $1.25 and $4.25.

### Is Muse Spark 1.2 or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

Muse Spark 1.2 scores higher on coding benchmarks: 49.2 versus 34.0 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Muse Spark 1.2 does, with 1.05M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Muse Spark 1.2 and Qwen3 8B share?

5 benchmarks have published results for both models. Muse Spark 1.2 has 31 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.