DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.8 27B (Low) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) scores 14.8 points higher (26.2 vs 11.4) but costs 2.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $461; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25).
| Metric | DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 11.4 | 26.2 | +129.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 2.3× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $460.74 | $1,164.93 | +152.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 2.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 18.69s | 58.18s | +211.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 211.3% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $4.00 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25): 129.8% more intelligence, 152.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 211.3% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
DeepSeek R1 (Jan '25)Qwen3.8 27B (Low)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-r1-0120/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill