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Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking are closely matched at 20.1 and 23.6 on the LLM Stats Score.

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

Which is better?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 20.1 and 23.6.

In the 16 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking wins 11; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

  • you want predictable pricing at $0.09/M input and $1.10/M output

Choose Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 11 of 16 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
20.1
#197
23.6
#174
Reasoning
19.9
#192
24.7
#154
Agents
8.3
#132
12.9
#97
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
5 of 16
11 of 16
Input price
$0.09 / M
— / M
Output price
$1.10 / M
— / M
Context window
262,144
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

4 shared
Index
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Math
20.6#156
25.4#111
Writing
10.0#74
16.5#37
Finance
26.0#52
27.8#37
Legal
25.8#45
27.1#28
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

24 reported for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct · 47 for Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

16 shared

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct outperforms in 5 benchmarks (Arena-Hard v2, Creative Writing v3, Include, LiveBench 20241125, WritingBench), while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is better at 11 benchmarks (AIME 2025, BFCL-v3, GPQA, IFEval, LiveCodeBench v6, MMLU-Pro, MMLU-ProX, MMLU-Redux, Multi-IF, PolyMATH, SuperGPQA).

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.

Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

47.0B diff

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct has 47.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking, making it 142.4% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
80.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
33.0Bparameters
80.0B
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
33.0B
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct specifies output context (262,144 tokens).

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sun Sep 20 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct does not.

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.

Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct was released on 2025-09-10, while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is 0 month newer than Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct

Sep 10, 2025

1.0 years ago

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Sep 22, 2025

12 months ago

1w 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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking.

Which is better, Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking are closely matched on the LLM Stats Score at 20.1 and 23.6. Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking in benchmarks?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct scores MMLU-Redux: 90.9%, MultiPL-E: 87.8%, IFEval: 87.6%, WritingBench: 87.3%, Creative Writing v3: 85.3%. Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 95.7%, MMLU-Redux: 91.9%, MMBench-V1.1: 90.8%, CharXiv-D: 90.2%.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?

Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct supports 262K tokens and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking 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 Qwen3-Next-80B-A3B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (20.1 vs 23.6), multimodal support (no vs yes). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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