Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B leads Grok 4.20 on coding, 74.2 to 33.3 on the Vibe Coding Index, at about the same output price ($2.55 vs $2.50 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 27 benchmarks have a result for both.
Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.8 27B: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.8 27B for coding: it scores 74.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20.
Pick Grok 4.20 for output tokens 1.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $2.55 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.72 against $1.26).
- Shared results
- 27
- Grok 4.20 only
- 28
- Qwen3.8 27B only
- 58
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B scores 74.2 against 33.3.
2 and 4 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B leads, 33.7 against 25.7.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Qwen3.8 27B has a AA Agentic Index result, 45.8.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Qwen3.8 27B
Qwen3.8 27B leads, 88.9% against 88.6%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a AIME result, 96.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 leads, 86.3% against 84.3%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Grok 4.20 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1229.
Directional only
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
Qwen3.8 27B
Grok 4.20 $0.0025, Qwen3.8 27B $0.0017 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Grok 4.20
Grok 4.20 $0.72, Qwen3.8 27B $1.26.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Grok 4.20 33.3 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.8 27B 74.2 from 4 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 28.5 points apart on average over 4 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Grok 4.20 4.1% against Qwen3.8 27B 64.8%, 60.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Grok 4.20 $2.50 against Qwen3.8 27B $2.55 per million output tokens, 1.0x apart.
- Context window
- Grok 4.20 takes 2M tokens, Qwen3.8 27B 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 | Qwen3.8 27B | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 4 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 1 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 4 | ||
| Reasoning | 4 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 2 | ||
| General | 1 | 4 | ||
| All shared boards | 10 | 17 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index14
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 86.8% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1593 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 68.1 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 84.3% | 84.0% | Grok 4.20 |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 72.2% | 86.0% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 4.1% | 64.8% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 0.3% | 14.2% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 39.1% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 44.2% | 58.4% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.1% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.8% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 46.6% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 37.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 57.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| WeirdML | 52.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1483 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1478 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1602 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1570 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1577 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 18 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 25.7 | 33.7 | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 152.1 | 151.7 | Grok 4.20 |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | Not measured | 45.8 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| 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 | 1045 | 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 |
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 59.4% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 32.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 27.9% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 28.5% | 48.5% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 7.0% | 30.9% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 13.9% | 36.1% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 11.7% | 59.7% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 93.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| APEX-Agents | Not measured | 47.5% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $4,663 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index42
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 88.6% | 88.9% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 80.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 83.5% | 83.9% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 91.1% | 90.5% | Grok 4.20 |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.5% | 33.9% | Grok 4.20 |
| ARC-AGI | 89.5% | 87.5% | Grok 4.20 |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 65.1% | 42.4% | Grok 4.20 |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1459 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1479 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1461 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | Not measured | 1285 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | Not measured | 1295 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 75.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 96.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 16.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1455 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1458 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index32
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 86.3% | 84.3% | Grok 4.20 |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 77.7% | 82.4% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 54.4% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 74.1% | 70.8% | Grok 4.20 |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 45.4% | 64.9% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| MedQA (Vals AI) | 94.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 32.2% | 28.7% | Grok 4.20 |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1467 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1437 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1447 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1438 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index9 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1229 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1200 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1193 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1217 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1193 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1221 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1165 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1175 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 75.9% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 76.6% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 38.2% | 52.4% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 63.4% | 83.8% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| Vals Multimodal Index | 39.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| IFBench | 81.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 69.0% | 82.0% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| DTBench | 90.1% | 88.0% | Grok 4.20 |
| LMCA | 38.7% | 41.4% | Qwen3.8 27B |
| CL-bench | 22.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| Surface Evolver Bench | Not measured | 45.0% | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| CL-bench Life | 11.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.20 measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1440 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1436 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1383 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision | Not measured | 1269 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1428 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1501 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1443 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1387 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1384 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1465 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1449 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1415 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1439 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1440 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1448 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1405 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1393 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | Not measured | 1267 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | Not measured | 1326 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | Not measured | 1281 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | Not measured | 1235 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | Not measured | 1237 | Only Qwen3.8 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.20 | Qwen3.8 27B | 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
Qwen3.8 27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.8 27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.8 27B 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 | Qwen3.8 27B |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | xAI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | March 31, 2026 | August 14, 2026 |
| Context window | 2M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $1.25 | $0.425 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $2.55 |
| Coding index | 33.3 | 74.2 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 4 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.72 | $1.26 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Grok 4.20 better than Qwen3.8 27B for coding?
Pick Qwen3.8 27B for coding: it scores 74.2 on the Vibe Coding Index against 33.3 for Grok 4.20. Pick Grok 4.20 for output tokens 1.0x cheaper ($2.50 vs $2.55 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.72 against $1.26).
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.8 27B?
Grok 4.20 costs $1.25 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 27B costs $0.425 and $2.55. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Grok 4.20 costs $0.72 and Qwen3.8 27B $1.26.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.20 or Qwen3.8 27B?
Grok 4.20, with 2M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Grok 4.20 vs Qwen3.8 27B comparison based on?
27 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Grok 4.20's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.8 27B's on 4. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.