Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.5 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 5.4 points higher (27.6 vs 22.2) but costs 3.2× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $366; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 22.2, and Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite when 22.2 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 22.2 | 27.6 | +24.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 24.3% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $365.63 | $1,165.00 | +218.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.2× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 9.09s | 56.59s | +522.6% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 522.6% 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 (Medium) vs Gemini 3.5 Flash-Lite: 24.3% more intelligence, 218.6% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 522.6% 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 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Gemini 3.5 Flash-LiteQwen3.8 27B (Medium)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-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-5-flash-lite/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill