Ling 3.1 Flash vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Ling 3.1 Flash by InclusionAI or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) scores 4.3 points higher (45.4 vs 41.1) but costs 4.9× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $1015; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 41.1, and Ling 3.1 Flash when 41.1 is enough.
| Metric | Ling 3.1 Flash | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 41.1 | 45.4 | +10.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 10.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,014.56 | $4,934.79 | +386.4% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 4.9× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 13.61s | 65.39s | +380.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 380.5% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.30 / $0.90 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Ling 3.1 Flash: 10.5% more intelligence, 386.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 380.5% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Ling 3.1 Flash is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Opus 5.5 (Xhigh, Default Fallback) scores 56.00 for $4057.
Ling 3.1 FlashQwen3.8 Max (0902)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/ling-3-1-flash/qwen3-8-max · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/ling-3-1-flash/qwen3-8-max?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill