Grok-4.1 Thinking vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Comparing Grok-4.1 Thinking and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
xAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Grok-4.1 Thinking and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.
On price, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is roughly 12.3x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.
Grok-4.1 Thinking also accepts a larger context window (256,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Grok-4.1 Thinking
- you process long inputs — it offers a 256,000 token context window
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2025
Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
- cost matters — it's about 12.3x cheaper per token
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Grok-4.1 Thinking and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinkingdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, Grok-4.1 Thinking ($3.00/1M tokens) is 20.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($0.15/1M tokens).
For output processing, Grok-4.1 Thinking ($15.00/1M tokens) is 10.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($1.50/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Grok-4.1 Thinking is more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Grok-4.1 Thinking accepts 256,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's 65,536 tokens. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking can generate longer responses up to 65,536 tokens, while Grok-4.1 Thinking is limited to 8,000 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Grok-4.1 Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking does not.
Grok-4.1 Thinking can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Grok-4.1 Thinking
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
License
Usage and distribution terms
Grok-4.1 Thinking is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Grok-4.1 Thinking was released on 2025-11-17, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.
Grok-4.1 Thinking is 2 months newer than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.
Nov 17, 2025
9 months ago
2mo newerSep 10, 2025
11 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Provider Availability
Grok-4.1 Thinking is available from xAI. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is available from Novita.
Grok-4.1 Thinking
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Grok-4.1 Thinking and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Grok-4.1 Thinking vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.