Muse Spark 1.3 (max) vs Qwen3 Coder Next
Which is better for the money: Muse Spark 1.3 (max) by Meta or Qwen3 Coder Next by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-09-09.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Muse Spark 1.3 (max) scores 38.1 points higher (48.2 vs 10.1) but costs 4.2× as much to run the benchmark ($2000 vs $476; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Muse Spark 1.3 (max) when you need intelligence above 10.1, and Qwen3 Coder Next when 10.1 is enough.
| Metric | Muse Spark 1.3 (max) | Qwen3 Coder Next | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 48.2 | 10.1 | −79.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 79.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $2,000.35 | $476.03 | −76.2% Qwen3 Coder Next is 76.2% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 36.91s | 5.52s | −85.0% Qwen3 Coder Next is 85.0% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $1.25 / $4.25 | $0.35 / $1.20 | |
| Input modalities | Not reported | Not reported |
Qwen3 Coder Next vs Muse Spark 1.3 (max): 79.0% less intelligence, 76.2% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 85.0% faster end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Muse Spark 1.3 (max) is on today's frontier: nothing is both smarter and cheaper.
- Qwen3 Coder Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GLM-5.3-Flash scores 41.90 for $280.
Muse Spark 1.3 (max)Qwen3 Coder NextToday's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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