Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 17, 2026noindex (thin pair)

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct vs Qwen3 235B benchmark

Name: Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct vs Qwen3 235B AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct (nousresearch) and Qwen3 235B (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 17, 2026. Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct wins on output price at $1/1M. Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct has the larger context window (131k tokens). Every cell below is a dated snapshot from a named public source — we do not invent missing scores, and we do not run SWE-bench ourselves.

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nousresearch

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Auto-discovered from OpenRouter (nousresearch/hermes-3-llama-3.1-405b). Preview until a second source matches.

$1/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Open-weight Qwen3 mixture-of-experts.

Elo 1,440$1.8199999999999998/1M out

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Model A

Model B

Quick vs:vs Claude Opus 4.5 vs Claude Opus 4.6 vs Claude Sonnet 4.5 vs Claude 3.7 Sonnet

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct (1)vsQwen3 235B (7)

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 1W (13%)Overall: Qwen3 235BQwen3 235B: 7W (87%)

← Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct1 tiesQwen3 235B →

Qwen3 235B (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

—vs1,440

Coding Elo

—vs—

SWE-bench

—vs59.4%

LiveBench

—vs63.5%

GPQA Diamond

—vs76.8%

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 0WQwen3 235B: 4W

Qwen3 235B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

—vs74 tok/s

Time to first token

—vs320 ms

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 0WQwen3 235B: 2W

Tied (1/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$1/1Mvs$1.82/1M

Input price

$1/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

131kvs131k

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 1WQwen3 235B: 1W

Capability Matchup Radar

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

Each spoke is a skill. Farther from the center is better (0–100th percentile). Tap any dot to inspect details.

Tap any node to inspect

Percentile 0–100

Dimensional AdvantageQwen3 235B 4/6

Preference Elo

No shared data

Throughput Speed

No shared data

Price Efficiency

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

$0.82/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

—

EloHigh is better

1,440

LiveBench

High is better

—

LiveBenchHigh is better

63.5%

SWE-bench

High is better

—

SWE-benchHigh is better

59.4%

GPQA

High is better

—

GPQAHigh is better

76.8%

TTFT

Low is better

—

TTFTLow is better

320 ms

Speed

High is better

—

SpeedHigh is better

74 tok/s

In $

Low is better

$1/1M

In $Low is better

$0.45/1M+120%

Out $

Low is better

+82%$1/1M

Out $Low is better

$1.82/1M

Context

High is better

131k

ContextHigh is better

131k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Simulate monthly production API costs based on published $/1M tokens.

Save up to 14% with Qwen3 235B

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

Token Ratio (In vs Out)70% In / 30% Out

RAG / Search (10% out)Coding / Chat (50% out)

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct$50.00 / mo

In: $35.00Out: $15.00

Qwen3 235B$43.22 / mo

In: $15.92Out: $27.30

Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3 235B is estimated to save $6.78/month ($81/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct:Pick Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct when you are optimizing output cost.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatNous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Lower output list price ($1/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGNous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Larger window (131k).

Screenshots / visionQwen3 235B

Qwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	insufficient data	Need SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chat	Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct	Lower output list price ($1/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	insufficient data	Need TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAG	Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct	Larger window (131k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen3 235B	Qwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchSep 20, 2025

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Sep 2025 open-weight mixture-of-experts. Self-host path. Don’t confuse it with Qwen 3 Max.

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LIVE

nousresearch

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Elo n/a

LiveBench—

SWE-bench—

Speed—

Output cost$1/1M

Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Elo 1,440

LiveBench63.5%

SWE-bench59.4%

Speed74 tok/s

Output cost$1.82/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?: We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.
Which is better at coding, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?: SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct output tokens are $1/1M versus $1.82/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?: We do not have TTFT for both models.
Which has the larger context window?: Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct accepts 131k tokens versus 131k.
Can I self-host either model?: Qwen3 235B is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.
Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?: No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.
What does preference Elo mean on this page?: Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct and Qwen3 235B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct matchups →|All Qwen3 235B matchups →

Qwen3 235B vs Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (previous qwen)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen QwQ 32B (next qwen)Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen3 235B Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Qwen3 235B Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen3 235B Qwen2.5 Coder 32B Instruct vs Qwen3 235B

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct vs Qwen3 235B benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct (1)vsQwen3 235B (7)

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 1W (13%)Overall: Qwen3 235BQwen3 235B: 7W (87%)

← Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct1 tiesQwen3 235B →

Qwen3 235B (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

Preference Elo, Coding proficiency, SWE-bench & LiveBench accuracy

Preference Elo

—vs1,440

Coding Elo

—vs—

SWE-bench

—vs59.4%

LiveBench

—vs63.5%

GPQA Diamond

—vs76.8%

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 0WQwen3 235B: 4W

Qwen3 235B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

—vs74 tok/s

Time to first token

—vs320 ms

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 0WQwen3 235B: 2W

Tied (1/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$1/1Mvs$1.82/1M

Input price

$1/1Mvs$0.45/1M

Context window

131kvs131k

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct: 1WQwen3 235B: 1W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsinsufficient data

Need SWE-bench on both sides.

High-volume chatNous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Lower output list price ($1/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIinsufficient data

Need TTFT on both sides.

Long-document RAGNous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Larger window (131k).

Screenshots / visionQwen3 235B

Qwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	insufficient data	Need SWE-bench on both sides.
High-volume chat	Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct	Lower output list price ($1/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	insufficient data	Need TTFT on both sides.
Long-document RAG	Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct	Larger window (131k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen3 235B	Qwen3 235B is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?

We do not have preference Elo for both models, so we do not declare an overall winner. Compare the metrics that exist.

Which is better at coding, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?

SWE-bench is missing for at least one model, so we do not rank coding from a single number.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct output tokens are $1/1M versus $1.82/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct or Qwen3 235B?

We do not have TTFT for both models.

Which has the larger context window?

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct accepts 131k tokens versus 131k.

Can I self-host either model?

Qwen3 235B is marked open-weights in our catalog. The other side is a closed API. Check the provider license before you ship weights.

Are these scores from CompareLLM’s own evals?

No. V1 aggregates public leaderboards (and optional first-party latency pings). Each cell names its source and date. Read /methodology.

What does preference Elo mean on this page?

Preference Elo is a crowd vote from LMArena / Arena. People see two hidden answers and pick the one they like more. The model that wins more often gets a higher Elo. That means people preferred it — not that it passed a school test. It is not SWE-bench, not accuracy, and not a number we invent. Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct and Qwen3 235B Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

No shared data

No shared data

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Qwen3 235B

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

Swap or Add Any Model to this Matchup

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Intelligence & Reasoning

Speed & Latency

Pricing & Capacity

Multi-Dimensional Capability Radar

No shared data

No shared data

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3 235B: the open MoE Qwen, not the Max SKU

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Nous: Hermes 3 405B Instruct

Qwen3 235B

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons