Compare / Qwen3-8B vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview

Qwen3-8B vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview

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
GoogleGemini 3 Pro Preview Released 18 Nov 2025 · Not on sale
Qwen3-8B wins 4Gemini 3 Pro Preview wins 16

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). See also Alibaba vs Google, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-8B or Gemini 3 Pro Preview? The short answer

Pick Gemini 3 Pro Preview: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 28.0 against 7.3) at about the same price.

  • Gemini 3 Pro Preview scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 28.0 against 7.3.
  • Gemini 3 Pro Preview is newer: released 18 Nov 2025, against 28 Apr 2025 for Qwen3-8B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-8B does better for sticking to the facts; Gemini 3 Pro Preview for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

7.3
Intelligence Index
28.0

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-8BGemini 3 Pro Preview
Price per million tokens$0.12 in · $0.46 outNot on sale
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.20–
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index7.328.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens–
Released28 Apr 202518 Nov 2025 (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 128 of 164 76 of 165
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 45 of 52
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 169 of 198 45 of 199
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 159 of 188 20 of 189
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 6 of 152 68 of 153

From our research

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.

MeasureQwen3-8BGemini 3 Pro Preview
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 211 · 59 of 243 measured 7.3thinking reasoning 28.0high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 183 · 35 of 231 measured 58.9%thinking reasoning 90.8%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 220 · 42 of 242 measured 3.9%thinking reasoning 39.7%high reasoning
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 reported by Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) V4 · 3 results
Overall accuracy · BFCL% correct, higher is better 30 · 3 of 81 measured 42.6%bfcl fc 72.5%bfcl prompt
Irrelevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 38 · 28 of 81 measured 82.3%bfcl prompt 85.6%bfcl prompt
Memory · BFCL% correct, higher is better 40 · 3 of 81 measured 14.6%bfcl fc 61.7%bfcl prompt
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 162 · 25 of 230 measured 28.0no reasoning 66.7high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 176 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 33.0%low reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 60 · 49 of 230 measured 0.36no reasoning 0.37high reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 9 · 87 of 104 measured 4.8% 13.6%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 55 of 104 measured 99.9% 99.4%
Show all 20 results (9 more)
MeasureQwen3-8BGemini 3 Pro Preview
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 165 · 52 of 195 measured 33.5%thinking reasoning 70.4%high reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 73 of 233 measured 0.0%no reasoning 76.0%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 173 · 32 of 190 measured 2.3%no reasoning 41.7%high reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 142 · 49 of 193 measured 27.8%thinking reasoning 87.1%high reasoning
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 · 6 of 81 measured 41.8%bfcl fc 63.1%bfcl fc
Relevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 8 · 49 of 81 measured 93.8%bfcl fc 75.0%bfcl fc
Single-turn calls (curated) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 14 · 1 of 81 measured 88.6%bfcl prompt 90.7%bfcl prompt
Single-turn calls (user-contributed) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 9 · 2 of 81 measured 80.5%bfcl fc 83.1%bfcl prompt
Web search · BFCL% correct, higher is better 35 · 7 of 81 measured 13.5%bfcl prompt 80.0%bfcl prompt

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-8B better than Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Pick Gemini 3 Pro Preview: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 28.0 against 7.3) at about the same price.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-8B or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 76 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 Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 45 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 169 for Qwen3-8B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-8B or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 20 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 Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Qwen3-8B ranks 6 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 68 for Gemini 3 Pro Preview.

Run Qwen3-8B and Gemini 3 Pro Preview on your own prompt

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