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Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Comparing Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

xAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok 4.6

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

Choose Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok 4.6
xAI
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$6.00 / M
— / M
Context window
500,000
—
Released
Aug 2026
Jan 2025
License
Proprietary
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instructdon'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

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Grok 4.6 specifies input context (500,000 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.6
Input500,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mon Aug 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Grok 4.6 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct does not.

Grok 4.6 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Grok 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Grok 4.6

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.6 was released on 2026-08-12, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct was released on 2025-01-31.

Grok 4.6 is 19 months newer than Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.

Grok 4.6

Aug 12, 2026

1 weeks ago

1.5yr newer
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Jan 31, 2025

1.6 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok 4.6 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-02-01, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Grok 4.6's training data extends to 2026-02-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct's cutoff date.

Grok 4.6

Feb 2026

Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.6
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.

Which is better, Grok 4.6 or Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Grok 4.6 (xAI) and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Grok 4.6 compare to Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct in benchmarks?

Grok 4.6 scores CursorBench v3.2: 69.9%, DeepSWE 1.1: 65.9%, FrontierCode: 61.3%, AA-Index: 61.0%, GDPval-AA: 58.4%. Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct scores TAU-bench Retail: 77.5%, SWE-Bench Verified: 69.6%, BFCL-v3: 68.7%, Aider-Polyglot: 61.8%, TAU-bench Airline: 60.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Grok 4.6 supports 500K tokens and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.6 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Grok 4.6 is developed by xAI and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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