Compare / Qwen3-8B vs GPT-5.2

Qwen3-8B vs GPT-5.2

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-8B Released 28 Apr 2025 · $0.12 in · $0.46 out
OpenAIGPT-5.2 Released 11 Dec 2025 · $1.75 in · $14.00 out
Qwen3-8B wins 5GPT-5.2 wins 16

Of the 21 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 OpenAI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-8B or GPT-5.2? The short answer

Pick GPT-5.2 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 30.4 against 7.3). Pick Qwen3-8B if cost matters more: it costs 24 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $4.81 per million tokens, 24 times less.
  • GPT-5.2 scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 30.4 against 7.3.
  • GPT-5.2 is newer: released 11 Dec 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; GPT-5.2 for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

7.3
Intelligence Index
30.4
$0.20
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$4.81
131,072
Context window, tokens
400,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-8BGPT-5.2
Price per million tokens$0.12 in · $0.46 out$1.75 in · $14.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.20$4.81
Cheapest host, blended–$4.81 (Azure)
Intelligence Index7.330.4
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens400,000 tokens
Released28 Apr 202511 Dec 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 57 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 33 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 169 of 198 48 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 159 of 188 78 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 6 of 152 77 of 152

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.

MeasureQwen3-8BGPT-5.2
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 211 · 49 of 243 measured 7.3thinking reasoning 30.4xhigh reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 183 · 40 of 231 measured 58.9%thinking reasoning 90.3%xhigh reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 220 · 50 of 242 measured 3.9%thinking reasoning 37.7%xhigh 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 · 14 of 81 measured 42.6%bfcl fc 55.9%bfcl fc
Irrelevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 38 · 19 of 81 measured 82.3%bfcl prompt 87.3%bfcl prompt
Memory · BFCL% correct, higher is better 40 · 10 of 81 measured 14.6%bfcl fc 45.8%bfcl fc
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 162 · 78 of 230 measured 28.0no reasoning 49.4high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 214 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 76.0%high reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 60 · 17 of 230 measured 0.36no reasoning 0.40low reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 9 · 43 of 104 measured 4.8% 8.4%low reasoning
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 1 of 104 measured 99.9% 100.0%high reasoning
Show all 21 results (10 more)
MeasureQwen3-8BGPT-5.2
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 5 results
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 109 · 73 of 121 measured 4.7%thinking reasoning 11.1%no reasoning
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 165 · 26 of 195 measured 33.5%thinking reasoning 75.4%xhigh reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 19 of 233 measured 0.0%no reasoning 82.7%xhigh reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 173 · 15 of 190 measured 2.3%no reasoning 47.0%xhigh reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 142 · 60 of 193 measured 27.8%thinking reasoning 84.8%xhigh 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 · 22 of 81 measured 41.8%bfcl fc 43.8%bfcl prompt
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 · 53 of 81 measured 88.6%bfcl prompt 81.9%bfcl fc
Single-turn calls (user-contributed) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 9 · 47 of 81 measured 80.5%bfcl fc 70.4%bfcl fc
Web search · BFCL% correct, higher is better 35 · 10 of 81 measured 13.5%bfcl prompt 75.5%bfcl fc

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-8B better than GPT-5.2?

Pick GPT-5.2 if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 30.4 against 7.3). Pick Qwen3-8B if cost matters more: it costs 24 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-8B or GPT-5.2?

Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $4.81 per million tokens, 24 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-8B or GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 57 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 GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 48 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 GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2 ranks 78 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 GPT-5.2?

Qwen3-8B ranks 6 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 77 for GPT-5.2.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-8B or GPT-5.2?

GPT-5.2: 400,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-8B.

Run Qwen3-8B and GPT-5.2 on your own prompt

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