Model Comparison

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Verdict: Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct — which is better?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct outperforms in 4 benchmarks (DocVQAtest, InfoVQAtest, MVBench, RealWorldQA), while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (MathVista-Mini, MMMU-Pro, OCRBench). Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Choose Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 4 of 7 shared benchmarks

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct if…

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

7 benchmarks

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct outperforms in 4 benchmarks (DocVQAtest, InfoVQAtest, MVBench, RealWorldQA), while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 3 benchmarks (MathVista-Mini, MMMU-Pro, OCRBench).

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Wed Jun 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

64.4B diff

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has 64.4B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct, making it 715.6% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
73.4Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
9.0Bparameters
73.4B
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct specifies input context (131,072 tokens). Only Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct specifies output context (32,768 tokens).

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Wed Jun 10 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, 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.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct was released on 2024-08-29, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 13 months newer than Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Aug 29, 2024

1.8 years ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

8 months ago

1.1yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-06-30, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct's training data extends to 2023-06-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's cutoff date.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Jun 2023

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

—

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Higher DocVQAtest score (96.5% vs 96.1%)
Higher InfoVQAtest score (84.5% vs 83.1%)
Higher MVBench score (73.6% vs 68.7%)
Higher RealWorldQA score (77.8% vs 71.5%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Larger context window (131,072 tokens)
Higher MathVista-Mini score (77.2% vs 70.5%)
Higher MMMU-Pro score (55.9% vs 46.2%)
Higher OCRBench score (89.6% vs 87.7%)

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

FAQ

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

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

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a slight edge in benchmark performance. Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team 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.

How does Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.5%, VCR_en_easy: 91.9%, ChartQA: 88.3%, OCRBench: 87.7%, MMBench: 86.5%. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct supports an unknown number of 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.

What are the main differences between Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Key differences include licensing (tongyi-qianwen vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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