Model Comparison

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 vs Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is 1.3x cheaper per token.

Want to compare interactively?Try the playground

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

2 benchmarks

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 outperforms in 2 benchmarks (AIME 2025, GPQA), while Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is better at 0 benchmarks.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 costs less

For input processing, LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 ($0.30/1M tokens) is 1.7x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking ($0.18/1M tokens).

For output processing, LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 ($1.20/1M tokens) is 1.7x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking ($2.09/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601.*

* 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-Thinking-2601
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.20
Best providerMeituan
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
Input tokens$0.18
Output tokens$2.09
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

551.0B diff

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 has 551.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking, making it 6122.2% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
560.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
9.0Bparameters
560.0B
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601's 128,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 does not.

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

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking uses Apache 2.0.

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

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

MIT

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 was released on 2026-01-14, while Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is 4 months newer than Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

Jan 14, 2026

3 months ago

3mo newer
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

Sep 22, 2025

6 months 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-Flash-Thinking-2601 is available from Meituan. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is available from DeepInfra.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

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

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.18/1MOutput Price:Output: $2.09/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Key Takeaways

Meituan
Less expensive output tokens
Higher AIME 2025 score (99.6% vs 80.3%)
Higher GPQA score (80.5% vs 69.9%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Larger context window (262,144 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Less expensive input tokens

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 vs Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is made by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking 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-Thinking-2601 scores AIME 2025: 99.6%, Tau2 Telecom: 99.3%, Tau2 Retail: 88.6%, LiveCodeBench: 82.8%, GPQA: 80.5%. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking scores DocVQAtest: 95.3%, ScreenSpot: 93.6%, MMLU-Redux: 88.8%, MMBench-V1.1: 87.5%, InfoVQAtest: 86.0%.
Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is 1.7x cheaper for input tokens. LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 costs $0.30/M input and $1.20/M output via meituan. Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking costs $0.18/M input and $2.09/M output via deepinfra.
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (128K vs 262K), input pricing ($0.30 vs $0.18/M), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (MIT vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is developed by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 8B Thinking is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.