Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite by Google or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 (Medium) scores 12.0 points higher (27.6 vs 15.6) but costs 7.5× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $156; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 15.6, and Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite when 15.6 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 15.6 | 27.6 | +76.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 76.9% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $155.87 | $1,165.00 | +647.4% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 7.5× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 6.01s | 56.59s | +841.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 841.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.25 / $1.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite: 76.9% more intelligence, 647.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 841.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Max) scores 38.10 for $122.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Gemini 3.1 Flash-LiteQwen3.8 27B (Medium)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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