Grok 4.6 (Medium) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next
Which is better for the money: Grok 4.6 (Medium) by SpaceXAI or Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Grok 4.6 (Medium) scores 3.0 points higher (42.8 vs 39.8) but costs 4.3× as much to run the benchmark ($1557 vs $363; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Grok 4.6 (Medium) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Grok 4.6 (Medium) | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 42.8 | 39.8 | −7.0% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 7.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,557.04 | $362.72 | −76.7% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 76.7% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 33.09s | 50.49s | +52.6% Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is 52.6% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $2.00 / $6.00 | $0.15 / $0.47 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Grok 4.6 (Medium): 7.0% less intelligence, 76.7% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 52.6% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Grok 4.6 (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
Grok 4.6 (Medium)Qwen3.8-Flash-NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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