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LongCat-2.5 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

LongCat-2.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 50.0 to 23.2. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 1.1x cheaper per token.

Meituan · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

LongCat-2.5 leads the overall LLM Stats Score 50.0 to 23.2, ranking #20 overall.

On price, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is roughly 1.1x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

LongCat-2.5 also accepts a larger context window (1,048,576 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 LongCat-2.5

  • overall performance matters — it scores 50.0 and ranks #20 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and agents — it leads those capability indexes
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 1,048,576 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2026

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

  • cost matters — it's about 1.1x cheaper per token
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

LongCat-2.5
Meituan
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
50.0
#20
23.2
#208
Reasoning
48.3
#21
23.9
#192
Agents
36.3
#23
12.0
#136
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$0.30 / M
$0.15 / M
Output price
$1.20 / M
$1.50 / M
Context window
1,048,576
65,536

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
LongCat-2.5
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Math
37.2#37
26.4#113
Tool use
30.2#15
10.6#146
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

23 reported for LongCat-2.5 · 23 for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

No common benchmarks found

LongCat-2.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinkingdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking costs less

For input processing, LongCat-2.5 ($0.30/1M tokens) is 2.0x more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($0.15/1M tokens).

For output processing, LongCat-2.5 ($1.20/1M tokens) is 1.3x cheaper than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking ($1.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, LongCat-2.5 is more expensive than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Nov 05 2026 • llm-stats.com
Meituan
LongCat-2.5
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.20
Best providerMeituan
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input tokens$0.15
Output tokens$1.50
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

1520.0B diff

LongCat-2.5 has 1520.0B more parameters than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking, making it 1900.0% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-2.5
1.6Tparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
80.0Bparameters
1600.0B
LongCat-2.5
80.0B
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

LongCat-2.5 accepts 1,048,576 input tokens compared to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking's 65,536 tokens. LongCat-2.5 can generate longer responses up to 131,072 tokens, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is limited to 65,536 tokens.

Meituan
LongCat-2.5
Input1,048,576 tokens
Output131,072 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Input65,536 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Thu Nov 05 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

LongCat-2.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking does not.

LongCat-2.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

LongCat-2.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-2.5 was released on 2026-11-01, while Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking was released on 2025-09-10.

LongCat-2.5 is 14 months newer than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

LongCat-2.5

Nov 1, 2026

4 days ago

1.1yr newer
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

Sep 10, 2025

1.2 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

LongCat-2.5 is available from Meituan. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is available from Novita.

LongCat-2.5

meituan logo
Meituan
Input Price:Input: $0.30/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.20/1M

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.15/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.50/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against LongCat-2.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

LongCat-2.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-2.5 vs Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking.

Which is better, LongCat-2.5 or Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

LongCat-2.5 leads the LLM Stats Score 50.0 to 23.2. LongCat-2.5 is made by Meituan and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking 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 LongCat-2.5 compare to Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking in benchmarks?

LongCat-2.5 scores MathVision: 96.5%, BrowseComp: 91.9%, CharXiv-R: 90.2%, Terminal-Bench 2.1: 88.4%, Video-MME: 85.2%. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking scores MMLU-Redux: 92.5%, IFEval: 88.9%, AIME 2025: 87.8%, WritingBench: 84.6%, MMLU-Pro: 82.7%.

Is LongCat-2.5 cheaper than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is 2.0x cheaper for input tokens. LongCat-2.5 costs $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output via meituan. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking costs $0.15/M input and $1.50/M output via novita.

What are the context window sizes for LongCat-2.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

LongCat-2.5 supports 1.0M tokens and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking supports 66K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between LongCat-2.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (50.0 vs 23.2), context window (1.0M vs 66K), input pricing ($0.30 vs $0.15/M), multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Unknown vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes LongCat-2.5 and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking?

LongCat-2.5 is developed by Meituan and Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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