Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.8 27B (Low)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite by Google 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 4.0 points higher (26.2 vs 22.2) but costs 2.9× as much to run the benchmark ($1060 vs $366; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Low) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.8 27B (Low) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.2 | 26.2 | +18.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 18.0% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $365.63 | $1,060.08 | +189.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 2.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.50s | 55.56s | +484.8% Qwen3.8 27B (Low) is 484.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $2.50 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Low) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 18.0% more intelligence, 189.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 484.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite 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 (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.8 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/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/qwen3-8-27b-low · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/qwen3-8-27b-low?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill