Qwen3.6-27B vs Qwen3.8 Max: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.8 Max both come from Alibaba, Qwen3.6-27B was released in April 2026, and Qwen3.8 Max followed 4 months later in August 2026. Qwen3.8 Max is the larger model at roughly 2.4 trillion parameters, against 28 billion for Qwen3.6-27B.
The two models share 10 published benchmarks. Qwen3.8 Max leads on 10 of them. The widest gaps are on SkillsBench, where Qwen3.8 Max scores 70.2% against 48.2%; NL2Repo, where Qwen3.8 Max scores 55.9% against 36.2%. Averaged across everything we track, Qwen3.6-27B sits at 77.5% and Qwen3.8 Max at 71.0%.
Qwen3.6-27B is the cheaper API at $0.60 per million input tokens and $3.60 per million output tokens, roughly 4 times cheaper than Qwen3.8 Max at $2.50 and $6.25. Qwen3.8 Max takes the larger context window at 1M tokens, compared with 262K for Qwen3.6-27B. Both accept text and images as input.
| Characteristic | Qwen3.6-27B | Qwen3.8 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Alibaba | Alibaba |
| Release Date | April 21, 2026 | August 2, 2026 |
| Parameters | 28B | 2.4T |
| Multimodal | Yes | Yes |
| Context (input) | 262K | 1.0M |
| Context (output) | 66K | 131K |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.60 | $2.50 |
| Output Price / 1M | $3.60 | $6.25 |
| Average Score | 77.5% | 71.0% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| SkillsBench | 48.2% | 70.2% |
| NL2Repo | 36.2% | 55.9% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 24.0% | 43.6% |
| ERQA | 62.5% | 77.8% |
| AndroidWorld | 70.3% | 85.3% |
| SWE-Bench Pro | 53.5% | 67.7% |
| MMMU-Pro | 75.8% | 82.3% |
| GPQA | 87.8% | 92.6% |
| RealWorldQA | 84.1% | 88.0% |
| VideoMME w sub. | 87.7% | 90.4% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Qwen3.8 Max leads in 2 out of 4 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Qwen3.6-27B — 0.8, Qwen3.8 Max — 0.7.
Qwen3.6-27B is 2.1x cheaper: input $0.60/1M vs $2.50/1M tokens.
Qwen3.8 Max supports a larger context: 1M vs 262K tokens.
Qwen3.8 Max is newer: released 8/2/2026 vs 4/21/2026.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen3.8 Max?
Which model is cheaper — Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen3.8 Max?
Which has a larger context window — Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen3.8 Max?
The Qwen3.6-27B 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 Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen3.8 Max page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.