LongCat 2.0 vs Qwen3.8 27B (Medium)
Which is better for the money: LongCat 2.0 by LongCat or Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) 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 27B (Medium) scores 8.5 points higher (27.6 vs 19.1) but costs 2.1× as much to run the benchmark ($1165 vs $545; both premium class). Pick Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise LongCat 2.0.
| Metric | LongCat 2.0 | Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 19.1 | 27.6 | +44.5% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 44.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $544.74 | $1,165.00 | +113.9% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 2.1× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.06s | 56.04s | +51.2% Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is 51.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $2.95 | $0.50 / $3.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) vs LongCat 2.0: 44.5% more intelligence, 113.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 51.2% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- LongCat 2.0 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (High) scores 50.20 for $521.
- Qwen3.8 27B (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
LongCat 2.0Qwen3.8 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/longcat-2-0/qwen3-8-27b-medium · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/longcat-2-0/qwen3-8-27b-medium?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill