Llama 4 Maverick vs Qwen2 72B Instruct
Llama 4 Maverick significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Meta · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Llama 4 Maverick outperforms in 4 benchmarks (GPQA, MATH, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MBPP). Llama 4 Maverick significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Llama 4 Maverick
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 4 of 5 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Apr 2025
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Llama 4 Maverick outperforms in 4 benchmarks (GPQA, MATH, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 1 benchmark (MBPP).
Llama 4 Maverick significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Llama 4 Maverick has 328.0B more parameters than Qwen2 72B Instruct, making it 455.6% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Llama 4 Maverick specifies input context (1,000,000 tokens). Only Llama 4 Maverick specifies output context (1,000,000 tokens).
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Llama 4 Maverick supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.
Llama 4 Maverick can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Llama 4 Maverick
Qwen2 72B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
Llama 4 Maverick is licensed under Llama 4 Community License Agreement, while Qwen2 72B Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Llama 4 Community License Agreement
Open weights
tongyi-qianwen
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Llama 4 Maverick was released on 2025-04-05, while Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.
Llama 4 Maverick is 9 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Apr 5, 2025
1.4 years ago
8mo newerJul 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Llama 4 Maverick and Qwen2 72B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Llama 4 Maverick vs Qwen2 72B Instruct.