gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Updated October 21, 2026. 15 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding: it scores 60.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 34.5 for gpt-oss-120b, though on 1 benchmark against 2.
Pick gpt-oss-120b when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
- Shared results
- 15
- gpt-oss-120b only
- 63
- Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct only
- 1
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct scores 60.4 against 34.5.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
gpt-oss-120b
gpt-oss-120b leads, 11.6 against 9.6.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only gpt-oss-120b has a AA Agentic Index result, 3.7.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only gpt-oss-120b has a GPQA Diamond result, 78.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only gpt-oss-120b has a AIME result, 92.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only gpt-oss-120b has a MMLU Pro result, 79.2%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct leads, 1087 against 968.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct takes 262K tokens against 131K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct
gpt-oss-120b $0.0004, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only gpt-oss-120b has the number, $0.51.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- gpt-oss-120b 34.5 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 60.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Math, 64.4 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run): gpt-oss-120b 93.4% against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 29.0%, 64.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- gpt-oss-120b $0.60 against Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct $0.28 per million output tokens, 2.1x apart.
- Context window
- gpt-oss-120b takes 131K tokens, Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct 262K.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | gpt-oss-120b | Bars | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 2 | 1 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 1 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 2 | 0 | ||
| Math | 2 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 3 | ||
| General | 2 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 11 | 4 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index21
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aider polyglot | 41.8% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| SWE-bench Verified | 26.0% | 60.4% | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
| SWE-bench Lite | Not measured | 49.7% | Only Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct measured |
| AA Coding Index | 30.4 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 33.6% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 87.8% | 40.3% | gpt-oss-120b |
| SciCode | 34.0% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.5% | 15.2% | gpt-oss-120b |
| Terminal-Bench | 18.7% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| WeirdML | 48.2% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| ALE-Bench | 575.6 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1379 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1387 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 24 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 11.6 | 9.6 | gpt-oss-120b |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 139.8 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 3.7 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 65.8% | 34.5% | gpt-oss-120b |
| APEX-Agents | 4.4% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| METR time horizons | 56.6% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | -$22 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 34 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 78.5% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 78.2% | 51.6% | gpt-oss-120b |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 19.6% | 3.8% | gpt-oss-120b |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 75.8% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| SimpleBench | 22.1% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 2.0% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1364 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1356 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1368 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 92.6% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| MATH 500 (Vals AI) | 94.8% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| MGSM (Vals AI) | 92.0% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| AA Math Index | 93.4 | 29.0 | gpt-oss-120b |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 93.4% | 29.0% | gpt-oss-120b |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 88.9% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1389 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1386 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 79.2% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 75.9% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 48.8% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 58.2% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.6% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 91.4% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.8% | 70.6% | gpt-oss-120b |
| LMArena Text: science | 1382 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1388 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1355 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1359 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 968 | 1087 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
| Design Arena: UI components | 927 | 1046 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
| Design Arena: game dev | 992 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 987 | 1085 | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
| Design Arena: 3D | 901 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 963 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 3 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index20
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| IFBench | 69.0% | 32.7% | gpt-oss-120b |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 52.0% | 32.7% | gpt-oss-120b |
| DTBench | 76.3% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMCA | 22.1% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 44.4% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Creative writing (Lech Mazur) | 77.1% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | 25.0% | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text | 1366 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1318 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1274 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1375 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1351 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1385 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1353 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1331 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1282 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1370 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1389 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1343 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1353 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1340 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1319 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1306 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1292 | Not measured | Only gpt-oss-120b measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | OpenAI gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | OpenAI | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | August 5, 2025 | July 31, 2025 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.15 | $0.07 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.60 | $0.28 |
| Coding index | 34.5 | 60.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.51 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is gpt-oss-120b better than Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding?
Pick Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct for coding: it scores 60.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 34.5 for gpt-oss-120b, though on 1 benchmark against 2. Pick gpt-oss-120b when what matters is LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) or Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run), where it leads.
Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
gpt-oss-120b costs $0.15 per million input tokens and $0.60 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct costs $0.07 and $0.28. Cost per solved task is known for gpt-oss-120b only.
Which has the bigger context window, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct?
Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks is the gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct comparison based on?
15 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. gpt-oss-120b's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B Instruct's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.