Model Comparison

LongCat-Flash-Chat vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

LongCat-Flash-Chat significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 2.8x cheaper per token.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

4 benchmarks

LongCat-Flash-Chat outperforms in 4 benchmarks (AIME 2025, IFEval, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

LongCat-Flash-Chat significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, LongCat-Flash-Chat ($0.30/1M tokens) is 3.8x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.08/1M tokens).

For output processing, LongCat-Flash-Chat ($1.20/1M tokens) is 2.4x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, LongCat-Flash-Chat is more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct.*

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

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Chat
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.20
Best providerMeituan
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.08
Output tokens$0.50
Best providerNovita
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Model Size

Parameter count comparison

551.0B diff

LongCat-Flash-Chat has 551.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct, making it 6122.2% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Chat
560.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
9.0Bparameters
560.0B
LongCat-Flash-Chat
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct accepts 131,072 input tokens compared to LongCat-Flash-Chat's 128,000 tokens. LongCat-Flash-Chat can generate longer responses up to 128,000 tokens, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is limited to 32,768 tokens.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Chat
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Chat does not.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

LongCat-Flash-Chat

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LongCat-Flash-Chat is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

LongCat-Flash-Chat

MIT

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-Flash-Chat was released on 2025-08-29, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 1 month newer than LongCat-Flash-Chat.

LongCat-Flash-Chat

Aug 29, 2025

7 months ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

6 months ago

3w newer

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-Flash-Chat is available from Meituan. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

LongCat-Flash-Chat

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.08/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.18/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.69/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Meituan
Higher AIME 2025 score (61.3% vs 45.9%)
Higher IFEval score (89.6% vs 83.7%)
Higher MMLU score (89.7% vs 80.7%)
Higher MMLU-Pro score (82.7% vs 71.6%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Larger context window (131,072 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Less expensive input tokens
Less expensive output tokens

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Chat
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-Flash-Chat vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

LongCat-Flash-Chat significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Chat is made by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.
LongCat-Flash-Chat scores MATH-500: 96.4%, MMLU: 89.7%, IFEval: 89.6%, ZebraLogic: 89.3%, HumanEval: 88.4%. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 3.8x cheaper for input tokens. LongCat-Flash-Chat costs $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output via meituan. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.08/M input and $0.50/M output via novita.
LongCat-Flash-Chat supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct supports 131K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (128K vs 131K), input pricing ($0.30 vs $0.08/M), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (MIT vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
LongCat-Flash-Chat is developed by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.