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Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3.8-27B

Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B are closely matched at 47.3 and 45.2 on the LLM Stats Score.

xAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 47.3 and 45.2.

In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Grok 4.6 wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Grok 4.6 also accepts a larger context window (500,000 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok 4.6

  • your work emphasizes reasoning and agents — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 500,000 token context window

Choose Qwen3.8-27B

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok 4.6
xAI
Qwen3.8-27B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
47.3
#23
45.2
#30
Reasoning
49.3
#17
44.8
#31
Coding
38.0
#16
31.6
#39
Agents
37.1
#12
30.4
#31
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
1 of 1
0 of 1
Input price
$2.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$6.00 / M
— / M
Context window
500,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

1 shared
Index
Grok 4.6
Qwen3.8-27B
Tool use
22.5#43
22.7#42
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

11 reported for Grok 4.6 · 26 for Qwen3.8-27B

1 shared

Grok 4.6 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (DeepSWE 1.1), while Qwen3.8-27B is better at 0 benchmarks.

Grok 4.6 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sun Sep 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Grok 4.6 accepts 500,000 input tokens compared to Qwen3.8-27B's 262,144 tokens. Only Qwen3.8-27B specifies output context (131,072 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.6
Input500,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8-27B
Input262,144 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Sun Sep 06 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Grok 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.8-27B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3.8-27B 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

Qwen3.8-27B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.6 was released on 2026-08-12, while Qwen3.8-27B was released on 2026-08-14.

Qwen3.8-27B is 0 month newer than Grok 4.6.

Grok 4.6

Aug 12, 2026

3 weeks ago

Qwen3.8-27B

Aug 14, 2026

3 weeks ago

2d newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok 4.6 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-02-01, while Qwen3.8-27B'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 Qwen3.8-27B's cutoff date.

Grok 4.6

Feb 2026

Qwen3.8-27B

—

Provider Availability

Grok 4.6 is available from xAI. Qwen3.8-27B is available from FriendliAI.

Grok 4.6

xai logo
xAI
Input Price:Input: $2.00/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M

Qwen3.8-27B

friendli logo
FriendliAI
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.6
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.8-27B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.6 vs Qwen3.8-27B.

Which is better, Grok 4.6 or Qwen3.8-27B?

Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 47.3 and 45.2. Grok 4.6 is made by xAI and Qwen3.8-27B is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Grok 4.6 compare to Qwen3.8-27B 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%. Qwen3.8-27B scores MathVision: 94.6%, OmniDocBench 1.5: 91.1%, LiveCodeBench v6: 90.3%, CharXiv-R: 90.2%, GPQA: 89.2%.

What are the context window sizes for Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B?

Grok 4.6 supports 500K tokens and Qwen3.8-27B supports 262K 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 Qwen3.8-27B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (47.3 vs 45.2), context window (500K vs 262K), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.6 and Qwen3.8-27B?

Grok 4.6 is developed by xAI and Qwen3.8-27B is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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