Compare / Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Grok 4.3

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Grok 4.3

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 3 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-397B-A17B Released 13 Feb 2026 · $0.55 in · $3.50 out
xAIGrok 4.3 Released 17 Apr 2026 · $1.25 in · $2.50 out
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B wins 84 too close to callGrok 4.3 wins 10

Of the 22 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 13 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-13-2e2420e3c5cc). See also Alibaba vs xAI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3? The short answer

Pick Grok 4.3: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 24.9 against 21.4) at about the same price.

  • They cost about the same: $1.29 and $1.56 per million tokens (three input to one output).
  • Grok 4.3 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 24.9 against 21.4.
  • Grok 4.3 is newer: released 17 Apr 2026, against 13 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-397B-A17B does better for agents and tool use and sticking to the facts; Grok 4.3 for reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

21.4
Intelligence Index
24.9
$1.29
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$1.56
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,000,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-397B-A17BGrok 4.3
Price per million tokens$0.55 in · $3.50 out$1.25 in · $2.50 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$1.29$1.56
Cheapest host, blended$0.88 (Alibaba)$1.56 (xAI)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index21.424.9
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second90–
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens
Released13 Feb 202617 Apr 2026 (newer)
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 70 of 164 111 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 48 of 51 49 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 73 of 198 55 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 69 of 188 57 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 75 of 152 111 of 152

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BGrok 4.3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 82 of 387 measured 1,442 1,441
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 70 · 102 of 163 measured 1,445 1,428
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 73 · 90 of 380 measured 1,446 1,439
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 97 · 77 of 243 measured 21.4no reasoning 24.9high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 53 · 41 of 231 measured 89.3% 90.1%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 77 · 53 of 242 measured 29.0% 37.2%high reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 77 · 50 of 230 measured 50.1no reasoning 57.7
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 134 · 124 of 230 measured 23.0%no reasoning 21.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 164 · 134 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.34
Show all 22 results (13 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BGrok 4.3
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 86 · 68 of 385 measured 1,405 1,422
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 67 · 96 of 338 measured 1,477 1,452
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 78 · 103 of 387 measured 1,434 1,414
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 74 of 386 measured 1,421 1,424
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 9 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 73 of 130 measured 51.3% 39.7%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 66 · 66 of 112 measured 0.0% 0.0%high reasoning
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 64 · 68 of 121 measured 13.4% 12.4%high reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 61 · 71 of 131 measured 48.2 42.2high reasoning
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 8 · 1 of 195 measured 78.8% 83.3%medium reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 66 · 78 of 233 measured 77.3% 75.0%medium reasoning
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 66 · 54 of 113 measured 44.8% 48.3%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 34 · 39 of 190 measured 40.9% 37.9%high reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 16 · 7 of 193 measured 95.6% 97.7%high reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-397B-A17B better than Grok 4.3?

Pick Grok 4.3: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 24.9 against 21.4) at about the same price.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

They cost about the same: $1.29 and $1.56 per million tokens (three input to one output).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ranks 70 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 111 for Grok 4.3.

Which is better for professional work, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ranks 48 of 51 models on sale for real tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects, against 49 for Grok 4.3.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 ranks 55 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 73 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3 ranks 57 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 69 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ranks 75 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 111 for Grok 4.3.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Grok 4.3?

Grok 4.3: 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Run Qwen3.5-397B-A17B and Grok 4.3 on your own prompt

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