GPT-5.6 Luna vs Qwen3.8 Max: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
GPT-5.6 Luna is developed by OpenAI, while Qwen3.8 Max comes from Alibaba. GPT-5.6 Luna was released in July 2026, and Qwen3.8 Max followed a month later in August 2026. Qwen3.8 Max has a published size of about 2.4 trillion parameters; OpenAI has not disclosed the parameter count of GPT-5.6 Luna.
The two models share 10 published benchmarks. Qwen3.8 Max leads on 9 of them, GPT-5.6 Luna on 1. The widest gaps are on MRCR v2 (8-needle), where Qwen3.8 Max scores 93.0% against 41.3%; Toolathlon, where Qwen3.8 Max scores 72.5% against 53.4%. Averaged across everything we track, GPT-5.6 Luna sits at 51.5% and Qwen3.8 Max at 71.0%.
GPT-5.6 Luna is the cheaper API at $0.20 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens, roughly 13 times cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max at $2.50 and $6.25. Both accept a context window of about 1M tokens. Both accept text and images as input.
| Characteristic | GPT-5.6 Luna | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Company | OpenAI | Alibaba |
| Release Date | July 9, 2026 | August 2, 2026 |
| Parameters | — | 2.4T |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 1.1M | 1.0M |
| Context (output) | 128K | 131K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.20 | $2.50 |
| Output Price / 1M | $1.20 | $6.25 |
| Average Score | 51.5% | 71.0% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| MRCR v2 (8-needle) | 41.3% | 93.0% |
| Toolathlon | 53.4% | 72.5% |
| AutomationBench | 14.9% | 27.3% |
| DeepSWE 1.1 | 67.0% | 56.6% |
| SWE-Bench Pro | 62.7% | 67.7% |
| HealthBench | 55.8% | 60.2% |
| MMMU-Pro | 78.4% | 82.3% |
| Agents' Last Exam | 50.3% | 52.4% |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | 84.7% | 86.6% |
| GPQA | 92.3% | 92.6% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
GPT-5.6 Luna leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: GPT-5.6 Luna — 0.5, Qwen3.8 Max — 0.7.
GPT-5.6 Luna is 6.3x cheaper: input $0.20/1M vs $2.50/1M tokens.
GPT-5.6 Luna supports a larger context: 1M vs 1M tokens.
Qwen3.8 Max is newer: released 8/2/2026 vs 7/9/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3.8 Max?
Which model is cheaper — GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3.8 Max?
Which has a larger context window — GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3.8 Max?
The GPT-5.6 Luna and Qwen3.8 Max comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the GPT-5.6 Luna or Qwen3.8 Max page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.