Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Qwen3 235B vs Seed 2.1 Turbo benchmark

Name: Qwen3 235B vs Seed 2.1 Turbo AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Qwen3 235B (Alibaba) and Seed 2.1 Turbo (ByteDance) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Seed 2.1 Turbo is ahead by 32 points (1,472 vs 1,440; seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Seed 2.1 Turbo resolves 63.2% versus 59.4% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 16, 2026)). Seed 2.1 Turbo streams faster (160 tok/s) while Qwen3 235B is the cheaper output token ($1.82/1M). Seed 2.1 Turbo has the larger context window (262k 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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Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Open-weight Qwen3 mixture-of-experts.

Elo 1,440$1.8199999999999998/1M out

ByteDance

Seed 2.1 Turbo

ByteDance Seed 2.1 Turbo, listed on public model timelines as an Aug 10 2026 API drop.

Elo 1,472$2.5/1M 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.

Qwen3 235B (2)vsSeed 2.1 Turbo (7)

Qwen3 235B: 2W (22%)Overall: Seed 2.1 TurboSeed 2.1 Turbo: 7W (78%)

← Qwen3 235B1 tiesSeed 2.1 Turbo →

Seed 2.1 Turbo (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,440vs1,472

Coding Elo

—vs1,480

SWE-bench

59.4%vs63.2%

LiveBench

63.5%vs64.8%

GPQA Diamond

76.8%vs76.8%

Qwen3 235B: 0WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 4W

Seed 2.1 Turbo (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

74 tok/svs160 tok/s

Time to first token

320 msvs120 ms

Qwen3 235B: 0WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 2W

Qwen3 235B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$1.82/1Mvs$2.5/1M

Input price

$0.45/1Mvs$0.5/1M

Context window

131kvs262k

Qwen3 235B: 2WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 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 AdvantageSeed 2.1 Turbo 5/6

Preference Elo

Seed 2.1 Turbo

32 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Seed 2.1 Turbo

86 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Qwen3 235B

$0.68/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,440

EloHigh is better

1,472+2%

Code Elo

High is better

—

Code EloHigh is better

1,480

LiveBench

High is better

63.5%

LiveBenchHigh is better

64.8%+2%

SWE-bench

High is better

59.4%

SWE-benchHigh is better

63.2%+6%

GPQA

High is better

76.8%

GPQAHigh is better

76.8%

TTFT

Low is better

320 ms

TTFTLow is better

120 ms+167%

Speed

High is better

74 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

160 tok/s+116%

In $

Low is better

+10%$0.45/1M

In $Low is better

$0.5/1M

Out $

Low is better

+37%$1.82/1M

Out $Low is better

$2.5/1M

Context

High is better

131k

ContextHigh is better

262k+100%

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 21% 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)

Qwen3 235B$43.22 / mo

In: $15.92Out: $27.30

Seed 2.1 Turbo$55.00 / mo

In: $17.50Out: $37.50

Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3 235B is estimated to save $11.78/month ($141/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Seed 2.1 Turbo:Pick Seed 2.1 Turbo when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Qwen3 235B:Pick Qwen3 235B when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Seed 2.1 Turbo:Pick Seed 2.1 Turbo when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsSeed 2.1 Turbo

Higher SWE-bench (63.2%).

High-volume chatQwen3 235B

Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).

Voice / low-latency UISeed 2.1 Turbo

Lower TTFT (120 ms).

Long-document RAGSeed 2.1 Turbo

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionSeed 2.1 Turbo

Seed 2.1 Turbo is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Higher SWE-bench (63.2%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3 235B	Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Lower TTFT (120 ms).
Long-document RAG	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Seed 2.1 Turbo is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchAug 10, 2026

Seed 2.1 Turbo (Aug 10): ByteDance’s API drop on the public timeline

Listed on public model timelines as an Aug 10 2026 API drop. Preview-quality story, indexable because we have a full snapshot.

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

Alibaba

Qwen3 235B

Elo 1,440

LiveBench63.5%

SWE-bench59.4%

Speed74 tok/s

Output cost$1.82/1M

ByteDance

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Elo 1,472

LiveBench64.8%

SWE-bench63.2%

Speed160 tok/s

Output cost$2.5/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?: Seed 2.1 Turbo has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,472). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?: Seed 2.1 Turbo leads SWE-bench at 63.2% vs 59.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Qwen3 235B output tokens are $1.82/1M versus $2.5/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?: Seed 2.1 Turbo has the lower time-to-first-token (120 ms vs 320 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Seed 2.1 Turbo accepts 262k 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. Qwen3 235B and Seed 2.1 Turbo Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Qwen3 235B matchups →|All Seed 2.1 Turbo matchups →

Qwen3 235B vs Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B (previous qwen)Qwen3 235B vs Qwen QwQ 32B (next qwen)Seed 2.1 Turbo vs Doubao Pro 1.5 (previous seed)Qwen QwQ 32B vs Seed 2.1 Turbo Qwen 3 Max vs Seed 2.1 Turbo Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Qwen3 235B

Qwen3 235B vs Seed 2.1 Turbo benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Qwen3 235B (2)vsSeed 2.1 Turbo (7)

Qwen3 235B: 2W (22%)Overall: Seed 2.1 TurboSeed 2.1 Turbo: 7W (78%)

← Qwen3 235B1 tiesSeed 2.1 Turbo →

Seed 2.1 Turbo (4/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,440vs1,472

Coding Elo

—vs1,480

SWE-bench

59.4%vs63.2%

LiveBench

63.5%vs64.8%

GPQA Diamond

76.8%vs76.8%

Qwen3 235B: 0WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 4W

Seed 2.1 Turbo (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

74 tok/svs160 tok/s

Time to first token

320 msvs120 ms

Qwen3 235B: 0WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 2W

Qwen3 235B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$1.82/1Mvs$2.5/1M

Input price

$0.45/1Mvs$0.5/1M

Context window

131kvs262k

Qwen3 235B: 2WSeed 2.1 Turbo: 1W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsSeed 2.1 Turbo

Higher SWE-bench (63.2%).

High-volume chatQwen3 235B

Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).

Voice / low-latency UISeed 2.1 Turbo

Lower TTFT (120 ms).

Long-document RAGSeed 2.1 Turbo

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionSeed 2.1 Turbo

Seed 2.1 Turbo is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Higher SWE-bench (63.2%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3 235B	Lower output list price ($1.82/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Lower TTFT (120 ms).
Long-document RAG	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Seed 2.1 Turbo	Seed 2.1 Turbo is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Seed 2.1 Turbo has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,472). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Seed 2.1 Turbo leads SWE-bench at 63.2% vs 59.4%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Qwen3 235B output tokens are $1.82/1M versus $2.5/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Qwen3 235B or Seed 2.1 Turbo?

Seed 2.1 Turbo has the lower time-to-first-token (120 ms vs 320 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Seed 2.1 Turbo accepts 262k 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. Qwen3 235B and Seed 2.1 Turbo 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

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Qwen3 235B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Seed 2.1 Turbo (Aug 10): ByteDance’s API drop on the public timeline

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

Cast Your Matchup Vote

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CompareLLM Matrix

Qwen3 235B

Seed 2.1 Turbo

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

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Qwen3 235B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Seed 2.1 Turbo (Aug 10): ByteDance’s API drop on the public timeline

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

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Qwen3 235B

Seed 2.1 Turbo

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons