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LongCat-Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.8-27B

Qwen3.8-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Meituan · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

LongCat-Flash-Lite outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.8-27B is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA). Qwen3.8-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

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

Choose LongCat-Flash-Lite

  • you want predictable pricing at $0.10/M input and $0.40/M output

Choose Qwen3.8-27B

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

LongCat-Flash-Lite
Meituan
Qwen3.8-27B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
0 of 1
1 of 1
Input price
$0.10 / M
— / M
Output price
$0.40 / M
— / M
Context window
256,000
—
Released
Feb 2026
Aug 2026
License
MIT
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

LongCat-Flash-Lite outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.8-27B is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).

Qwen3.8-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Mon Aug 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

40.7B diff

LongCat-Flash-Lite has 40.7B more parameters than Qwen3.8-27B, making it 146.6% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Lite
68.5Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8-27B
27.8Bparameters
68.5B
LongCat-Flash-Lite
27.8B
Qwen3.8-27B

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only LongCat-Flash-Lite specifies input context (256,000 tokens). Only LongCat-Flash-Lite specifies output context (128,000 tokens).

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Input256,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8-27B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mon Aug 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3.8-27B supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Lite does not.

Qwen3.8-27B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.8-27B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LongCat-Flash-Lite is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3.8-27B uses Apache 2.0.

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

LongCat-Flash-Lite

MIT

Open weights

Qwen3.8-27B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-Flash-Lite was released on 2026-02-05, while Qwen3.8-27B was released on 2026-08-14.

Qwen3.8-27B is 6 months newer than LongCat-Flash-Lite.

LongCat-Flash-Lite

Feb 5, 2026

6 months ago

Qwen3.8-27B

Aug 14, 2026

1 weeks ago

6mo 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

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

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

LongCat-Flash-Lite
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.8-27B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-Flash-Lite vs Qwen3.8-27B.

Which is better, LongCat-Flash-Lite or Qwen3.8-27B?

Qwen3.8-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Lite is made by Meituan and Qwen3.8-27B is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does LongCat-Flash-Lite compare to Qwen3.8-27B in benchmarks?

LongCat-Flash-Lite scores MATH-500: 96.8%, MMLU: 85.5%, CMMLU: 82.5%, MMLU-Pro: 78.3%, Tau2 Retail: 73.1%. 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 LongCat-Flash-Lite and Qwen3.8-27B?

LongCat-Flash-Lite supports 256K tokens and Qwen3.8-27B 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 LongCat-Flash-Lite and Qwen3.8-27B?

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

Who makes LongCat-Flash-Lite and Qwen3.8-27B?

LongCat-Flash-Lite is developed by Meituan and Qwen3.8-27B is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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