Compare / Qwen3-8B vs Command A

Qwen3-8B vs Command A

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 20 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-8B Released 28 Apr 2025 · $0.12 in · $0.46 out
CohereCommand A Released 13 Mar 2025 · $2.50 in · $10.00 out
Qwen3-8B wins 12Command A wins 8

Of the 20 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5).

Qwen3-8B or Command A? The short answer

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3-8B: it costs 22 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $4.38 per million tokens, 22 times less.
  • They score about the same on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index (7.3 and 7.0).
  • Qwen3-8B is newer: released 28 Apr 2025, against 13 Mar 2025 for Command A.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-8B does better for reasoning and knowledge and sticking to the facts; Command A for agents and tool use and writing.

Head to head

7.3
Intelligence Index
7.0
$0.20
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$4.38
131,072
Context window, tokens
256,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-8BCommand A
Price per million tokens$0.12 in · $0.46 out$2.50 in · $10.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.20$4.38
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index7.37.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second–60
Context window131,072 tokens256,000 tokens
Released28 Apr 2025 (newer)13 Mar 2025
WeightsOpenOpen
Developer based inChinaCanada

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 128 of 164 67 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 169 of 198 173 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 159 of 188 126 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 6 of 152 113 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.

MeasureQwen3-8BCommand A
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 211 · 216 of 243 measured 7.3thinking reasoning 7.0
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 183 · 195 of 231 measured 58.9%thinking reasoning 52.7%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 220 · 218 of 242 measured 3.9%thinking reasoning 4.0%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 reported by Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 · 3 results
Overall accuracy · BFCL% correct, higher is better 30 · 27 of 81 measured 42.6%bfcl fc 46.5%bfcl fc
Irrelevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 38 · 32 of 81 measured 82.3%bfcl prompt 84.2%bfcl fc
Memory · BFCL% correct, higher is better 40 · 39 of 81 measured 14.6%bfcl fc 16.6%bfcl fc
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 162 · 109 of 230 measured 28.0no reasoning 40.6
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 124 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 21.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 60 · 113 of 230 measured 0.36no reasoning 0.35
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 9 · 47 of 104 measured 4.8% 9.3%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 80 of 104 measured 99.9% 97.6%
Show all 20 results (9 more)
MeasureQwen3-8BCommand A
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 165 · 153 of 195 measured 33.5%thinking reasoning 36.5%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 197 of 233 measured 0.0%no reasoning 21.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 173 · 180 of 190 measured 2.3%no reasoning 0.8%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 142 · 178 of 193 measured 27.8%thinking reasoning 15.2%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 reported by Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 · 5 results
Multi-turn tasks · BFCL% correct, higher is better 23 · 35 of 81 measured 41.8%bfcl fc 29.5%bfcl fc
Relevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 8 · 36 of 81 measured 93.8%bfcl fc 81.3%bfcl fc
Single-turn calls (curated) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 14 · 22 of 81 measured 88.6%bfcl prompt 87.6%bfcl fc
Single-turn calls (user-contributed) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 9 · 19 of 81 measured 80.5%bfcl fc 78.5%bfcl fc
Web search · BFCL% correct, higher is better 35 · 21 of 81 measured 13.5%bfcl prompt 46.5%bfcl fc

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-8B better than Command A?

They score about the same, so pick Qwen3-8B: it costs 22 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $4.38 per million tokens, 22 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Command A ranks 67 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 128 for Qwen3-8B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Qwen3-8B ranks 169 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 173 for Command A.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Command A ranks 126 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 159 for Qwen3-8B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Qwen3-8B ranks 6 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 113 for Command A.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-8B or Command A?

Command A: 256,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-8B.

Run Qwen3-8B and Command A on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.