Llama 4 Scout vs Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)
Which is better for the money: Llama 4 Scout by Meta or Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) 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 (Xhigh) scores 27.2 points higher (33.7 vs 6.5) but costs 18× as much to run the benchmark ($1336 vs $73.6; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) when you need intelligence above 6.5, and Llama 4 Scout when 6.5 is enough.
| Metric | Llama 4 Scout | Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 6.5 | 33.7 | +418.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 5.2× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $73.56 | $1,336.09 | +1716.3% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 18× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 5.15s | 60.72s | +1079.0% Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is 1079.0% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.18 / $0.66 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) vs Llama 4 Scout: 418.5% more intelligence, 1716.3% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 1079.0% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Llama 4 Scout is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) scores 34.60 for $66.8.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Xhigh) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
Llama 4 ScoutQwen3.8 27B (Xhigh)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/llama-4-scout/qwen3-8-27b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/llama-4-scout/qwen3-8-27b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill