gpt-oss-20b (High) vs Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: gpt-oss-20b (High) by OpenAI or Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) 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 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) scores 3.7 points higher (12.7 vs 9.0) but costs 8.1× as much to run the benchmark ($234 vs $28.8; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.0 | 12.7 | +41.1% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 41.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $28.81 | $233.56 | +710.7% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 8.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.96s | 22.73s | +62.8% Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 … is 62.8% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.05 / $0.22 | $0.23 / $2.30 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text |
Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) vs gpt-oss-20b (High): 41.1% more intelligence, 710.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 62.8% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- gpt-oss-20b (High) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
gpt-oss-20b (High)Qwen3 235B A22B 2507 (Reasoning)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/gpt-oss-20b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-oss-20b/qwen3-235b-a22b-instruct-2507-reasoning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill