Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads Grok 4.20 on coding, 44.1 to 33.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Qwen3.6 Plus costs 1.3x less per output token ($1.95 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 42 benchmarks have a result for both.
Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.6 Plus: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20.
Pick Grok 4.20 for a lower cost per solved task ($0.72 against $1.19) and a larger context window (2M against 1M tokens).
- Shared results
- 42
- Grok 4.20 only
- 13
- Qwen3.6 Plus only
- 41
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.
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, six public coding benchmarks
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus scores 44.1 against 33.3.
2 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 27.0 against 25.7.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 leads, 88.6% against 87.4%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 leads, 96.5% against 94.6%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 87.7% against 86.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 1243 against 1229.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 takes 2M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus
Grok 4.20 $0.0025, Qwen3.6 Plus $0.0013 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 $0.72, Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Grok 4.20 33.3 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.6 Plus 44.1 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 8.4 points apart on average over 6 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- MortgageTax (Vals AI): Grok 4.20 45.4% against Qwen3.6 Plus 68.0%, 22.6 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Grok 4.20 $2.50 against Qwen3.6 Plus $1.95 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Grok 4.20 takes 2M tokens, Qwen3.6 Plus 1M.
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 | Grok 4.20 | Bars | Qwen3.6 Plus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 6 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 6 | ||
| Reasoning | 3 | 1 | ||
| Math | 1 | 0 | ||
| Knowledge | 2 | 5 | ||
| Web design | 2 | 6 | ||
| General | 4 | 4 | ||
| All shared boards | 13 | 29 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index06
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1461 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 54.5 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 84.3% | 86.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 72.2% | 73.4% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 4.1% | 25.6% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 0.3% | 11.1% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 44.2% | 53.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 37.9% | 43.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Terminal-Bench | 57.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| WeirdML | 52.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 670.1 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1467 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1462 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1463 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1472 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 25.7 | 27.0 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.1 | 147.3 | Grok 4.20 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1144 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1054 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1090 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1052 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1089 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1180 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 28.5% | 40.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 7.0% | 7.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 13.9% | 14.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 11.7% | 32.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 93.0% | 97.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $4,663 | $5,115 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 29 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index31
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.6% | 87.4% | Grok 4.20 |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.5% | 84.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 91.1% | 88.2% | Grok 4.20 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.5% | 27.8% | Grok 4.20 |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.4% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| ARC-AGI | 89.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 65.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 12.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 96.5% | 94.6% | Grok 4.20 |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 93.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 38.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1449 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index25
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.3% | 87.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 77.7% | 84.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 54.4% | 51.5% | Grok 4.20 |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.7% | 61.9% | Grok 4.20 |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.1% | 74.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 45.4% | 68.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 32.2% | 36.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 44.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1439 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1442 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1437 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1430 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index26
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1229 | 1243 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1199 | 1233 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1192 | 1211 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1217 | 1228 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1193 | 1202 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1221 | 1236 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1164 | 1161 | Grok 4.20 |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1174 | 1113 | Grok 4.20 |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index44
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 38.2% | 44.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 63.4% | 77.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 39.1% | 51.5% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| IFBench | 81.2% | 75.2% | Grok 4.20 |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 69.0% | 78.3% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| DTBench | 90.1% | 81.9% | Grok 4.20 |
| LMCA | 38.7% | 33.1% | Grok 4.20 |
| CL-bench | 22.2% | 20.3% | Grok 4.20 |
| CL-bench Life | 11.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1436 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1424 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1404 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1445 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1424 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1477 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1451 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1379 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1432 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1434 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1433 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1438 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1439 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1418 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1402 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus | 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
Qwen3.6 Plus costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus 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 | SpaceXAI Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | xAI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | March 31, 2026 | April 2, 2026 |
| Context window | 2M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.25 | $0.325 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.95 |
| Coding index | 33.3 | 44.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.72 | $1.19 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Grok 4.20 better than Qwen3.6 Plus for coding?
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20. Pick Grok 4.20 for a lower cost per solved task ($0.72 against $1.19) and a larger context window (2M against 1M tokens).
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Grok 4.20 costs $1.25 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.325 and $1.95. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Grok 4.20 costs $0.72 and Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Grok 4.20, with 2M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.6 Plus comparison based on?
42 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Grok 4.20's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.6 Plus's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.