gpt-oss-20b (High) vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: gpt-oss-20b (High) by OpenAI 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 18.6 points higher (27.6 vs 9.0) but costs 40× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $28.8; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when you need intelligence above 9.0, and gpt-oss-20b (High) when 9.0 is enough.
| Metric | gpt-oss-20b (High) | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.0 | 27.6 | +206.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 3.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $28.81 | $1,165.00 | +3943.7% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 40× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 14.95s | 56.59s | +278.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 278.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.05 / $0.22 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs gpt-oss-20b (High): 206.7% more intelligence, 3943.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 278.5% 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.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
gpt-oss-20b (High)Qwen3.8 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/gpt-oss-20b/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-oss-20b/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill