Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3.8 Flash
Updated October 21, 2026. 7 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Qwen3.8 Flash for coding: it scores 87.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 76.4 for Grok 4.6, though on 1 benchmark against 2.
Pick Grok 4.6 when what matters is LiveBench coding or LiveBench research, where it leads.
- Shared results
- 7
- Grok 4.6 only
- 116
- Qwen3.8 Flash only
- 0
- Like-for-like categories
- 5 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
Qwen3.8 Flash
Qwen3.8 Flash scores 87.4 against 76.4.
2 and 1 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has a AA Intelligence Index result, 44.3.
Directional only
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has a AA Agentic Index result, 53.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has a GPQA Diamond result, 94.7%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has a MMLU Pro result, 89.4%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has a Design Arena: websites result, 1289.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.8 Flash
Qwen3.8 Flash takes 1M tokens against 500K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.8 Flash
Grok 4.6 $0.0050, Qwen3.8 Flash $0.0004 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Grok 4.6 has the number, $0.82.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Grok 4.6 76.4 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.8 Flash 87.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 9.8 points apart on average over 3 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LiveBench browser: Grok 4.6 64.0% against Qwen3.8 Flash 48.0%, 16.0 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Grok 4.6 $6.00 against Qwen3.8 Flash $0.47 per million output tokens, 12.8x apart.
- Context window
- Grok 4.6 takes 500K tokens, Qwen3.8 Flash 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 4.6 | Bars | Qwen3.8 Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | ||
| Agentic work | 3 | 0 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 0 | ||
| Web design | 1 | 0 | ||
| General | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 7 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | 89.1% | 87.4% | Grok 4.6 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1617 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| AA Coding Index | 76.8 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 88.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 95.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | 17.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 76.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | 44.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | 1.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | 47.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | 78.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Vibe Code Bench 1-100 (Vals AI) | 14.8% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SkillsBench (Vals AI) | 55.8% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| CyberBench (Vals AI) | 67.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SciCode | 56.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| FrontierCode | 48.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| FrontierSWE | 25.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| WeirdML | 67.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ALE-Bench | 1508.1 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1466 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1457 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1631 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1597 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | 1603 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
IntelligenceDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 44.3 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 156.6 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index30
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 53.0 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | 1247 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | 1264 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | 1234 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | 1297 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | 1276 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | 1208 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | 1249 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | 1241 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench research | 84.5% | 74.6% | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench browser | 64.0% | 48.0% | Grok 4.6 |
| LiveBench long agentic | 40.7% | 37.1% | Grok 4.6 |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | 53.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | 33.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | 48.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | 62.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | 72.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | 11.4% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Vals Science Index | 38.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Time Horizon Index (Vals AI) | 5.8% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| APEX-Agents | 65.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $9,047 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 17 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 94.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench reasoning | 91.2% | 87.4% | Grok 4.6 |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | 30.6% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 94.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 44.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 94.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI | 87.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 67.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SimpleBench | 75.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Chess puzzles | 33.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 34.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| EBR-bench | 30.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1448 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1469 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1445 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1285 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1283 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 99.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 66.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | 31.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| ProofBench | 51.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1417 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1464 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 7 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index11 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 89.4% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 86.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 66.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.1% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 64.2% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 44.7% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | 49.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1437 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1420 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1429 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1416 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1289 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1294 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1296 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1283 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1277 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1292 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1239 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | 1278 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LiveBench design | 79.8% | 72.8% | Grok 4.6 |
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | 75.3% | 74.2% | Grok 4.6 |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | 66.8% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 28.9% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 86.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 81.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| DTBench | 97.3% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMCA | 48.5% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Furniture assembly | 40.0% | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text | 1429 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1431 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1426 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision | 1263 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1433 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1420 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1476 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: German | 1426 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1378 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1391 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1455 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1414 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1421 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1430 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1425 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1456 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1429 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1421 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1270 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1289 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1272 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1270 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1262 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| LMArena Document | 1452 | Not measured | Only Grok 4.6 measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Grok 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash | 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 Flash costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.8 Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.8 Flash 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 4.6 | Qwen3.8 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | xAI | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | Open weights |
| Released | August 12, 2026 | August 26, 2026 |
| Context window | 500K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $2.00 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $6.00 | $0.47 |
| Coding index | 76.4 | 87.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.82 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Grok 4.6 better than Qwen3.8 Flash for coding?
Pick Qwen3.8 Flash for coding: it scores 87.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 76.4 for Grok 4.6, though on 1 benchmark against 2. Pick Grok 4.6 when what matters is LiveBench coding or LiveBench research, where it leads.
Which is cheaper, Grok 4.6 or Qwen3.8 Flash?
Grok 4.6 costs $2.00 per million input tokens and $6.00 per million output tokens; Qwen3.8 Flash costs $0.15 and $0.47. Cost per solved task is known for Grok 4.6 only.
Which has the bigger context window, Grok 4.6 or Qwen3.8 Flash?
Qwen3.8 Flash, with 1M tokens against 500K.
How many benchmarks is the Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3.8 Flash comparison based on?
7 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Grok 4.6's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.8 Flash's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.