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Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 13.8 to 10.7. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 1.2x cheaper per token.

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

Which is better?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the overall LLM Stats Score 13.8 to 10.7, ranking #256 overall.

In the 44 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct wins 39; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is roughly 1.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct also accepts a larger context window (262,144 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

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

Choose Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

  • you process long inputs — it offers a 262,144 token context window

Choose Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

  • overall performance matters — it scores 13.8 and ranks #256 on LLM Stats
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 39 of 44 exact shared results
  • cost matters — it's about 1.2x cheaper per token

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
10.7
#278
13.8
#256
Reasoning
8.2
#292
11.2
#273
Agents
2.0
#181
7.0
#153
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
5 of 44
39 of 44
Input price
$0.10 / M
$0.08 / M
Output price
$0.60 / M
$0.50 / M
Context window
262,144
131,072

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

6 shared
Index
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Math
7.8#268
11.9#241
Vision
7.0#154
9.8#133
Writing
6.6#92
11.1#73
Multimodal
8.4#136
11.2#122
Finance
9.7#148
15.0#127
1 more shared indexes
Legal
8.5#141
14.5#111
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

45 reported for Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct · 46 for Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

44 shared

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct outperforms in 5 benchmarks (AIME 2025, MMBench-V1.1, MVBench, ODinW, ScreenSpot Pro), while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is better at 39 benchmarks (AI2D, BFCL-v3, BLINK, CC-OCR, CharadesSTA, CharXiv-D, CharXiv-R, DocVQAtest, ERQA, Hallusion Bench, HMMT25, IFEval, Include, InfoVQAtest, LiveBench 20241125, LiveCodeBench v6, LVBench, MathVision, MathVista-Mini, MLVU-M, MMLU, MMLU-Pro, MMLU-ProX, MMLU-Redux, MM-MT-Bench, MMMU-Pro, MMMU (val), MMStar, MuirBench, OCRBench, OCRBench-V2 (en), OCRBench-V2 (zh), OSWorld, PolyMATH, RealWorldQA, ScreenSpot, SuperGPQA, VideoMMMU, WritingBench).

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Oct 08 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs less

For input processing, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens) is 1.3x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.08/1M tokens).

For output processing, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.60/1M tokens) is 1.2x more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct ($0.50/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is more expensive than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Oct 08 2026 • llm-stats.com
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Input tokens$0.10
Output tokens$0.60
Best providerDeepinfra
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input tokens$0.08
Output tokens$0.50
Best providerNovita
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

5.0B diff

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct has 5.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct, making it 125.0% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
4.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
9.0Bparameters
4.0B
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
9.0B
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct's 131,072 tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is limited to 32,768 tokens.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Input131,072 tokens
Output32,768 tokens
Thu Oct 08 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

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

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

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 VL 4B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Both models were released on 2025-09-22.

They likely represent similar generations of model development.

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

1.0 years ago

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

1.0 years 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

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is available from DeepInfra. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is available from Novita, DeepInfra.

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.10/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.60/1M

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct

novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.08/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.50/1M
deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.18/1MOutput Price:Output: $0.69/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct.

Which is better, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct or Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct leads the LLM Stats Score 13.8 to 10.7. Qwen3 VL 4B 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 capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct in benchmarks?

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 95.3%, ScreenSpot: 94.0%, OCRBench: 88.1%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.1%, AI2D: 84.1%. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 94.4%, OCRBench: 89.6%, AI2D: 85.7%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.0%.

Is Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct cheaper than Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct is 1.3x cheaper for input tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct costs $0.10/M input and $0.60/M output via deepinfra. Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct costs $0.08/M input and $0.50/M output via novita.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct supports 262K 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 Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct and Qwen3 VL 8B Instruct?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (10.7 vs 13.8), context window (262K vs 131K), input pricing ($0.10 vs $0.08/M). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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