Pairwise benchmark snapshot · Aug 16, 2026

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Name: Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen 3 Max AI benchmark comparison
Creator: CompareLLM
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This page compares Qwen3.8 27B (Alibaba) and Qwen 3 Max (Alibaba) using the latest snapshots we have as of Aug 16, 2026. On preference Elo, Qwen 3 Max is ahead by 120 points (1,518 vs 1,398; seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). On SWE-bench coding, Qwen 3 Max resolves 67.8% versus 58.8% (seed-bootstrap (Aug 1, 2026)). Qwen3.8 27B streams faster (152 tok/s) while Qwen3.8 27B is the cheaper output token ($3.2/1M). Qwen3.8 27B 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

Qwen3.8 27B

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop dated Aug 14 2026. Dense enough to self-host; not a frontier MoE.

Elo 1,398$3.1999999999999997/1M out

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Alibaba flagship. Strong math and multilingual code.

Elo 1,518$3.9/1M out

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Model A

Model B

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Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Qwen3.8 27B (4)vsQwen 3 Max (5)

Qwen3.8 27B: 4W (44%)Overall: Qwen 3 MaxQwen 3 Max: 5W (56%)

← Qwen3.8 27B1 tiesQwen 3 Max →

Qwen 3 Max (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,398vs1,518

Coding Elo

1,422vs1,526

SWE-bench

58.8%vs67.8%

LiveBench

60.6%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

73.4%vs83.1%

Qwen3.8 27B: 0WQwen 3 Max: 5W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

152 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

140 msvs280 ms

Qwen3.8 27B: 2WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$3.2/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.45/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

262kvs262k

Qwen3.8 27B: 2WQwen 3 Max: 0W

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 AdvantageQwen 3 Max 3/6

Preference Elo

Qwen 3 Max

120 pts advantage

Throughput Speed

Qwen3.8 27B

72 tok/s faster

Price Efficiency

Qwen3.8 27B

$0.70/1M cheaper

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

—

Elo

High is better

1,398

EloHigh is better

1,518+9%

Code Elo

High is better

1,422

Code EloHigh is better

1,526+7%

LiveBench

High is better

60.6%

LiveBenchHigh is better

69.4%+15%

SWE-bench

High is better

58.8%

SWE-benchHigh is better

67.8%+15%

GPQA

High is better

73.4%

GPQAHigh is better

83.1%+13%

TTFT

Low is better

+100%140 ms

TTFTLow is better

280 ms

Speed

High is better

+90%152 tok/s

SpeedHigh is better

80 tok/s

In $

Low is better

+73%$0.45/1M

In $Low is better

$0.78/1M

Out $

Low is better

+22%$3.2/1M

Out $Low is better

$3.9/1M

Context

High is better

262k

ContextHigh is better

262k

Interactive Simulator

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

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

Save up to 26% with Qwen3.8 27B

Monthly Volume50M tokens/mo

Quick Presets:

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

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

Qwen3.8 27B$63.75 / mo

In: $15.75Out: $48.00

Qwen 3 Max$85.80 / mo

In: $27.30Out: $58.50

Estimated Cost Delta

Qwen3.8 27B is estimated to save $22.05/month ($265/year).

Based on 50M tokens (30% gen)

Key Selection Recommendations

1
Qwen 3 Max:Pick Qwen 3 Max when repo-level coding accuracy is the constraint.
2
Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when you are optimizing output cost.
3
Qwen3.8 27B:Pick Qwen3.8 27B when time-to-first-token matters more than peak Elo.

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen 3 Max

Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).

High-volume chatQwen3.8 27B

Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27B

Lower TTFT (140 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen3.8 27B

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Qwen 3 Max	Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower TTFT (140 ms).
Long-document RAG	Qwen3.8 27B	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

View all news

launchAug 14, 2026

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Alibaba open-weight 27B drop. Local/open-weight lists should see it. It will not win frontier-agents.

launchApr 18, 2026

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

Closed flagship. Strong math. Compare to Sol and Opus on GPQA and SWE-bench, not on brand heat.

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

Qwen3.8 27B

Elo 1,398

LiveBench60.6%

SWE-bench58.8%

Speed152 tok/s

Output cost$3.2/1M

Alibaba

Qwen 3 Max

Elo 1,518

LiveBench69.4%

SWE-bench67.8%

Speed80 tok/s

Output cost$3.9/1M

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,518). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.
Which is better at coding, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen 3 Max leads SWE-bench at 67.8% vs 58.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.
Which is cheaper to run in production?: Qwen3.8 27B output tokens are $3.2/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.
Which is faster, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?: Qwen3.8 27B has the lower time-to-first-token (140 ms vs 280 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.
Which has the larger context window?: Qwen3.8 27B accepts 262k tokens versus 262k.
Can I self-host either model?: Qwen3.8 27B 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. Qwen3.8 27B and Qwen 3 Max Elo cells are dated snapshots from the named source — we do not compute Arena ourselves.

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons

All Qwen3.8 27B matchups →|All Qwen 3 Max matchups →

Qwen 3 Max vs Qwen QwQ 32B (previous qwen)Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B vs Qwen3.8 27B Qwen3 235B vs Qwen3.8 27B Qwen 2.5 Plus vs Qwen3.8 27B Mistral Large 3 vs Qwen3.8 27B Llama 4 Maverick vs Qwen 3 Max

Qwen3.8 27B vs Qwen 3 Max benchmark

Interactive Comparison Diagram

Matchup Breakdown

Tug-of-War Matchup Matrix

Category wins across intelligence, speed, and pricing efficiency.

Qwen3.8 27B (4)vsQwen 3 Max (5)

Qwen3.8 27B: 4W (44%)Overall: Qwen 3 MaxQwen 3 Max: 5W (56%)

← Qwen3.8 27B1 tiesQwen 3 Max →

Qwen 3 Max (5/5)

Intelligence & Reasoning

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

Preference Elo

1,398vs1,518

Coding Elo

1,422vs1,526

SWE-bench

58.8%vs67.8%

LiveBench

60.6%vs69.4%

GPQA Diamond

73.4%vs83.1%

Qwen3.8 27B: 0WQwen 3 Max: 5W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/2)

Speed & Latency

Generation throughput and time to first token responsiveness

Output speed

152 tok/svs80 tok/s

Time to first token

140 msvs280 ms

Qwen3.8 27B: 2WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Qwen3.8 27B (2/3)

Pricing & Capacity

Cost per million tokens and max context window length

Output price

$3.2/1Mvs$3.9/1M

Input price

$0.45/1Mvs$0.78/1M

Context window

262kvs262k

Qwen3.8 27B: 2WQwen 3 Max: 0W

Recommended Workload Routing

Repo / coding agentsQwen 3 Max

Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).

High-volume chatQwen3.8 27B

Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).

Voice / low-latency UIQwen3.8 27B

Lower TTFT (140 ms).

Long-document RAGQwen3.8 27B

Larger window (262k).

Screenshots / visionQwen 3 Max

Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Target Workload	Recommended Pick	Evaluation Rationale
Repo / coding agents	Qwen 3 Max	Higher SWE-bench (67.8%).
High-volume chat	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower output list price ($3.2/1M).
Voice / low-latency UI	Qwen3.8 27B	Lower TTFT (140 ms).
Long-document RAG	Qwen3.8 27B	Larger window (262k).
Screenshots / vision	Qwen 3 Max	Qwen 3 Max is the side marked multimodal in the catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which is better overall, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max has the higher preference Elo in our latest snapshot (1,518). “Better” still depends on coding, price, and latency — see the table.

Which is better at coding, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen 3 Max leads SWE-bench at 67.8% vs 58.8%. SWE-bench is one harness, not your repo.

Which is cheaper to run in production?

Qwen3.8 27B output tokens are $3.2/1M versus $3.9/1M. Input prices and retry rates still move the real bill.

Which is faster, Qwen3.8 27B or Qwen 3 Max?

Qwen3.8 27B has the lower time-to-first-token (140 ms vs 280 ms). Tokens/sec is a separate column if you care about long completions.

Which has the larger context window?

Qwen3.8 27B accepts 262k tokens versus 262k.

Can I self-host either model?

Qwen3.8 27B 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. Qwen3.8 27B and Qwen 3 Max 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

Qwen 3 Max

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

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

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CompareLLM Matrix

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen 3 Max

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

Qwen 3 Max

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen3.8 27B

Full Benchmark Score Matrix

Workload Cost & Savings Calculator

Key Selection Recommendations

Recommended Workload Routing

Related Editorial Dispatches & Benchmark Notes

Qwen3.8 27B (Aug 14): dense enough to self-host, not a frontier MoE

Qwen 3 Max: Alibaba’s flagship for math and multilingual code

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

Cast Your Matchup Vote

Community Discussions (0)

Share card

CompareLLM Matrix

Qwen3.8 27B

Qwen 3 Max

Frequently Asked Questions

Related news

Similar Head-to-Head Comparisons