LongCat 2.0 vs Qwen3.8 Max
Which is better for the money: LongCat 2.0 by LongCat or Qwen3.8 Max 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 scores 21.1 points higher (40.2 vs 19.1) but costs 5.8× as much to run the benchmark ($3172 vs $545; flagship vs premium cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max when you need intelligence above 19.1, and LongCat 2.0 when 19.1 is enough.
| Metric | LongCat 2.0 | Qwen3.8 Max | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 19.1 | 40.2 | +110.5% Qwen3.8 Max is 2.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $544.74 | $3,172.37 | +482.4% Qwen3.8 Max is 5.8× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 37.06s | 64.17s | +73.2% Qwen3.8 Max is 73.2% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $2.95 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.8 Max vs LongCat 2.0: 110.5% more intelligence, 482.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 73.2% 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 Max is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Kimi K3.1 Pro scores 55.10 for $3117.
LongCat 2.0Qwen3.8 MaxToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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