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Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3.8-27B

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

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Qwen2 72B Instruct 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 Qwen2 72B Instruct

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem

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.

Qwen2 72B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8-27B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
0 of 1
1 of 1
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
—
Released
Jul 2024
Aug 2026
License
tongyi-qianwen
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Qwen2 72B Instruct 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

44.2B diff

Qwen2 72B Instruct has 44.2B more parameters than Qwen3.8-27B, making it 159.2% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 72B Instruct
72.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.8-27B
27.8Bparameters
72.0B
Qwen2 72B Instruct
27.8B
Qwen3.8-27B

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3.8-27B supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.

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

Qwen2 72B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.8-27B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen2 72B Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while Qwen3.8-27B uses Apache 2.0.

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

Qwen2 72B Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Qwen3.8-27B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Qwen3.8-27B was released on 2026-08-14.

Qwen3.8-27B is 25 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.

Qwen2 72B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.1 years ago

Qwen3.8-27B

Aug 14, 2026

1 weeks ago

2.1yr 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 Qwen2 72B Instruct and Qwen3.8-27B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen2 72B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.8-27B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3.8-27B.

Which is better, Qwen2 72B Instruct or Qwen3.8-27B?

Qwen3.8-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Qwen2 72B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team 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 Qwen2 72B Instruct compare to Qwen3.8-27B in benchmarks?

Qwen2 72B Instruct scores GSM8k: 91.1%, CMMLU: 90.1%, HellaSwag: 87.6%, HumanEval: 86.0%, Winogrande: 85.1%. 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 main differences between Qwen2 72B Instruct and Qwen3.8-27B?

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

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