Qwen3.8-Flash-Next vs Qwen3.8 Max (0902)
Which is better for the money: Qwen3.8-Flash-Next by Alibaba or Qwen3.8 Max (0902) 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 Max (0902) scores 5.6 points higher (45.4 vs 39.8) but costs 14× as much to run the benchmark ($4935 vs $363; flagship vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.8 Max (0902) when you need intelligence above 39.8, and Qwen3.8-Flash-Next when 39.8 is enough.
| Metric | Qwen3.8-Flash-Next | Qwen3.8 Max (0902) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.8 | 45.4 | +14.1% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 14.1% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $362.72 | $4,934.79 | +1260.5% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 14× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 50.19s | 62.92s | +25.4% Qwen3.8 Max (0902) is 25.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.15 / $0.47 | $2.00 / $6.00 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.8 Max (0902) vs Qwen3.8-Flash-Next: 14.1% more intelligence, 1260.5% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 25.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Qwen3.8-Flash-Next is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Medium) scores 47.80 for $361.
- 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.
Qwen3.8-Flash-NextQwen3.8 Max (0902)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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