Compare / Qwen3-8B vs o4-mini

Qwen3-8B vs o4-mini

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
OpenAIo4-mini Released 16 Apr 2025 · $1.10 in · $4.40 out
Qwen3-8B wins 71 too close to callo4-mini wins 12

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 OpenAI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-8B or o4-mini? The short answer

Pick o4-mini if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 16.7 against 7.3). Pick Qwen3-8B if cost matters more: it costs 9.6 times less per token.

  • Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $1.93 per million tokens, 9.6 times less.
  • o4-mini scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 16.7 against 7.3.
  • Qwen3-8B is newer: released 28 Apr 2025, against 16 Apr 2025 for o4-mini.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3-8B does better for sticking to the facts; o4-mini for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing.

Head to head

7.3
Intelligence Index
16.7
$0.20
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$1.93
131,072
Context window, tokens
200,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-8Bo4-mini
Price per million tokens$0.12 in · $0.46 out$1.10 in · $4.40 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.20$1.93
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index7.316.7
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens200,000 tokens
Released28 Apr 2025 (newer)16 Apr 2025
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 48 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 169 of 198 105 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 159 of 188 101 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 6 of 152 141 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.

MeasureQwen3-8Bo4-mini
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 211 · 117 of 243 measured 7.3thinking reasoning 16.7high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 183 · 117 of 231 measured 58.9%thinking reasoning 78.4%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 220 · 120 of 242 measured 3.9%thinking reasoning 16.5%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 · 18 of 81 measured 42.6%bfcl fc 53.2%bfcl fc
Irrelevance detection · BFCL% correct, higher is better 38 · 21 of 81 measured 82.3%bfcl prompt 87.2%bfcl prompt
Memory · BFCL% correct, higher is better 40 · 15 of 81 measured 14.6%bfcl fc 35.3%bfcl prompt
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 162 · 84 of 230 measured 28.0no reasoning 46.9low reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 99 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 19.0%high reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 60 · 140 of 230 measured 0.36no reasoning 0.33low reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 9 · 95 of 104 measured 4.8% 18.6%high reasoning
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 17 · 59 of 104 measured 99.9% 99.2%high reasoning
Show all 20 results (9 more)
MeasureQwen3-8Bo4-mini
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 165 · 60 of 195 measured 33.5%thinking reasoning 68.7%high reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 222 · 138 of 233 measured 0.0%no reasoning 61.0%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 173 · 110 of 190 measured 2.3%no reasoning 15.2%high reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 142 · 97 of 193 measured 27.8%thinking reasoning 55.6%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 · 23 of 81 measured 41.8%bfcl fc 41.8%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 · 59 of 81 measured 88.6%bfcl prompt 81.3%bfcl prompt
Single-turn calls (user-contributed) · BFCL% correct, higher is better 9 · 43 of 81 measured 80.5%bfcl fc 70.8%bfcl prompt
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 o4-mini?

Pick o4-mini if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 16.7 against 7.3). Pick Qwen3-8B if cost matters more: it costs 9.6 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-8B or o4-mini?

Qwen3-8B is cheaper: $0.20 against $1.93 per million tokens, 9.6 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-8B or o4-mini?

o4-mini ranks 48 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 o4-mini?

o4-mini ranks 105 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 o4-mini?

o4-mini ranks 101 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 o4-mini?

Qwen3-8B ranks 6 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 141 for o4-mini.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-8B or o4-mini?

o4-mini: 200,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-8B.

Run Qwen3-8B and o4-mini on your own prompt

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

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