GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.8 Max

Updated October 29, 2026. Rank says Qwen3.8 Max is ahead. Price, access, and your workload can each overturn that. Public scores include evidence status and uncertainty.

Decision reading

Qwen3.8 Max has the higher public point estimate, 64.86 versus 28.45. Their conditional score ranges do not overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence. 2 results are shared. Category rows resting on Estimated evidence or different benchmark sets are marked directional and do not name a winner.

Model A

GPT-4.1 mini

OpenAI

28.45/100

Estimated · Public rank #183

Conditional range 14.1–42.8

Model B

Qwen3.8 Max

Alibaba

64.86/100

Supported · Public rank #33

90% interval 56.0–73.7

Shared results: 2
GPT-4.1 mini only: 3
Qwen3.8 Max only: 64
Like-for-like categories: 1 / 8

Estimated: GPT-4.1 mini · Supported: Qwen3.8 Max. Conditional ranges do not establish rank confidence.How the comparison works

Which one for your work

Recommendations appear only when a shared evidence basis or an explicit operating constraint supports the call. Secondary and unsupported use cases stay disclosed below the initial list.

No workload recommendation clears the current evidence threshold.

Use the matched evidence, workload costs, and sourced specifications below instead of treating a point score as a universal answer.

Show secondary and unsupported calls

Coding work
Code generation, repair, and software-engineering tasks
Not enough matched evidence
GPT-4.1 mini is scored on Estimated evidence for coding, so the reading is directional rather than like-for-like.
Confidence: limited
Agentic work
Tool use, computer use, and multi-step task completion
Not enough matched evidence
GPT-4.1 mini is not ranked on the public lane for agentic, so no winner is named for agentic.
Confidence: limited
Long documents
Prompts that approach the documented context limit
No clear pick
The documented context windows are equal.
Confidence: documented
Chat turn cost
1K fresh input + 500 output tokens
Not enough matched evidence
A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Confidence: listed-rates
Cache-heavy agent loop cost
200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens
Not enough matched evidence
A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Confidence: rate-fallback
Repository review cost
50K fresh input + 3K output tokens
Not enough matched evidence
A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Confidence: listed-rates

Which one for a specific job

Choose a job from the LLM Selector's task catalog to see the category row it rests on, under the same basis rules as the table below. A directional row stays directional; choosing a job never creates a winner.

Pick the job you would use them for

The same task catalog as the LLM Selector. Each job names the evidence surface it rests on; nothing here adds a new score.

17.7GPT-4.1 mini52.7Qwen3.8 Max

Directional only · BenchAlign v5.8

Qwen3.8 Max has the higher coding point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

Coding scores combine specific tasks and setups. Match the editor, harness, and effort to your workflow.

Open the coding leaderboard Shortlist models for this job

Same basis rules as the category table below

Shape of the matched evidence

Only shared public evidence is shown. Sparse evidence stays a ruled list rather than being closed into a radar shape.

Too few matched category axes support a radar. The ruled list below shows only shared benchmark results; positions use each benchmark’s normalized display scale when available.

FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Math
Normalized gap 68.1
GPT-4.1 mini:6.667%
Qwen3.8 Max:74.737%
Shared source
GPQAKnowledge
Normalized gap 28.4
GPT-4.1 mini:64.2%
Qwen3.8 Max:92.6%
GPT-4.1 mini source Qwen3.8 Max source

Bars run 0–100 on each benchmark’s normalized display scale

Category results, on a stated basis

Each row shows the public-lane category score for both models: the BenchAlign v5.8 lane for agentic, coding, and knowledge, and the weighted public rows elsewhere, with the same rank each model page reports. A row is like-for-like only when both scores rest on Supported evidence or the same weighted set. Directional and not-comparable rows remain visible, but they never receive a winner.

Knowledge

Like-for-like

GPT-4.1 mini: 29.9; Supported · #152/179
Qwen3.8 Max: 65.5; Supported · #28/179
Basis: BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 2 vs 6 public rows
Reading: Qwen3.8 Max leads

Coding

Directional only

GPT-4.1 mini: 17.7; Estimated · #140/156
Qwen3.8 Max: 52.7; Supported · #38/156
Basis: BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 1 vs 13 public rows
Reading: Directional only

Instruction following

Directional only

GPT-4.1 mini: 44.2; #115/157
Qwen3.8 Max: 94.7; #2/157
Basis: Provisional lane · 0 vs 1 weighted rows
Reading: Directional only

Agentic

Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: Not ranked
Qwen3.8 Max: 66.0; Supported · #16/135
Basis: BenchAlign v5.8 lane · 0 vs 18 public rows
Reading: Not comparable

Reasoning

Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 55.2; Unranked · 2 rankable rows
Qwen3.8 Max: 87.0; Unranked · 2 rankable rows
Basis: Provisional lane · 0 vs 2 weighted rows
Reading: Not comparable

Multimodal

Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 51.6; Unranked · 1 rankable row
Qwen3.8 Max: 91.9; #2/58
Basis: Provisional lane · 0 vs 2 weighted rows
Reading: Not comparable

Multilingual

Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: Not ranked
Qwen3.8 Max: Not ranked
Basis: Provisional lane · 0 vs 0 weighted rows
Reading: Not comparable

Math

Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 27.0; Unranked · 1 rankable row
Qwen3.8 Max: 78.9; Unranked · 2 rankable rows
Basis: Provisional lane · 1 vs 2 weighted rows
Reading: Not comparable

Category scores with the server-provided evidence basis for GPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.8 Max
Category	GPT-4.1 mini	Qwen3.8 Max	Basis	Reading
Knowledge	29.9Supported · #152/179	65.5Supported · #28/179	Like-for-likeBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 2 vs 6 public rows	Qwen3.8 Max leads
Coding	17.7Estimated · #140/156	52.7Supported · #38/156	Directional onlyBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 1 vs 13 public rows	Directional only
Instruction following	44.2#115/157	94.7#2/157	Directional onlyProvisional lane · 0 vs 1 weighted rows	Directional only
Agentic	Not ranked	66.0Supported · #16/135	Not comparableBenchAlign v5.8 lane · 0 vs 18 public rows	Not comparable
Reasoning	55.2Unranked · 2 rankable rows	87.0Unranked · 2 rankable rows	Not comparableProvisional lane · 0 vs 2 weighted rows	Not comparable
Multimodal	51.6Unranked · 1 rankable row	91.9#2/58	Not comparableProvisional lane · 0 vs 2 weighted rows	Not comparable
Multilingual	Not ranked	Not ranked	Not comparableProvisional lane · 0 vs 0 weighted rows	Not comparable
Math	27.0Unranked · 1 rankable row	78.9Unranked · 2 rankable rows	Not comparableProvisional lane · 1 vs 2 weighted rows	Not comparable

Ranks count the models scored in each category’s lane, so the agentic, coding, and knowledge denominators (BenchAlign v5.8) differ from the provisional-lane categories. Unranked scores sit on the provisional lane’s scale but never name a winner. Like-for-like rows within 0.5 points read as a practical tie.

Supported evidence per lane · bars run 0–100Methodology

What each workload costs

Three fixed token mixes turn per-token rates into comparable decisions. Each scenario states context fit and whether cached input had to fall back to the published list-input rate.

Chat turn

1K fresh input + 500 output tokens

GPT-4.1 mini: $0.0012; Fits in one request
Qwen3.8 Max: API rate not published; Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Repository review

50K fresh input + 3K output tokens

GPT-4.1 mini: $0.0248; Fits in one request
Qwen3.8 Max: API rate not published; Fits in one request

Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Cache-heavy agent loop

200K cached + 20K fresh input + 10K output tokens

GPT-4.1 mini: $0.104; Fits in one request; Cached input priced at the published list-input rate
Qwen3.8 Max: API rate not published; Fits in one request; Cached-input rate unavailable

GPT-4.1 mini has no published cached-input rate, so cached tokens use its listed input rate. Qwen3.8 Max has no comparable published API token rate.

Cached input falls back to the list input rate only where a cached rate is unpublished

Specification differences

Sourced differences are shown directly. Missing facts stay explicit instead of being inferred from a model name or family.

SpecificationGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.8 Max

Context window

Maximum documented context; output-token limits may be lower.

GPT-4.1 mini

Qwen3.8 Max

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing

API model ID

GPT-4.1 mini

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

qwen3.8-max

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing

Cached-input rate

A missing cached-input rate falls back to the listed input rate only in the stated workload estimate.

GPT-4.1 mini

Not published

Qwen3.8 Max

No comparable hosted API rate

Alibaba Cloud Model Studio pricing

Documented inputs

GPT-4.1 mini

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Documented outputs

GPT-4.1 mini

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Provider availability

GPT-4.1 mini

Not sourced

Qwen3.8 Max

Not sourced

Reasoning profile

GPT-4.1 mini

Non-Reasoning

Qwen3.8 Max

Reasoning

Weight access

GPT-4.1 mini

Proprietary

Qwen3.8 Max

Open Weight

License

GPT-4.1 mini

Proprietary

Qwen3.8 Max

Open Weight

Release date

GPT-4.1 mini

2025-04-14

Qwen3.8 Max

2026-08-03

If you already use one of these models

Deployment change: The models list different providers, so authentication, endpoint behavior, limits, and feature support may change.
Quality signal: Qwen3.8 Max has the higher public point estimate, 64.86 versus 28.45. Their conditional score ranges do not overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence.
Workload cost: A complete comparable API-rate estimate is not available for both models.
Context tradeoff: Both models list 1M.

Run the same representative tasks against both endpoints before changing production traffic.

Questions

Which is better, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max has the higher public point estimate, 64.86 versus 28.45. Their conditional score ranges do not overlap. These ranges do not establish rank confidence. The page therefore keeps the decision tied to the specific documented workload.

Which is better for coding, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Qwen3.8 Max scores higher for coding on the public lane, 52.7 to 17.7. GPT-4.1 mini is scored on Estimated evidence for coding, so the reading is directional rather than like-for-like. BenchLM does not name a winner for coding from a directional reading; read the shared benchmark rows directly and test the models on the same task set.

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

GPT-4.1 mini is not ranked on the public lane for agentic tasks, so no winner is named for agentic tasks.

Which costs less, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Both models do not have comparable published API token rates, so this page does not name a universal price winner.

Which has the larger context window, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Both models list the same context window, 1M.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

GPT-4.1 mini

API / mo$1,500

Self-host / moNot listed

Break-even—

Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.

Qwen3.8 Max

API / mo$0

Self-host / mo$57,606

Break-even—

Model the full break-even

Benchmark evidence

The full public result ledger is available for audit without forcing a wide desktop table onto a phone.

Browse raw public benchmark evidence69 rows

Agentic

Terminal-Bench 2.1
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max86.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
CoWorkBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max74.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
JobBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max53.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
skillsBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max70.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
Agents' Last Exam
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max52.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
AutomationBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max27.3%
Source
Not directly comparable
Toolathlon-Verified
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max72.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
WideResearch
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max81.9%
Source
Not directly comparable
HLE w/ tools
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max56.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
OSWorld-Verified
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max86.1%
Source
Not directly comparable
OSWorld 2.0
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max19.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
WebArena-Verified
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max66.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
AndroidWorld
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max85.3%
Source
Not directly comparable
MobileWorld
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max77.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max67.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
Hermes Index
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max36.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
Hermes Bench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max70.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
MazeBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max0%
Source
Not directly comparable

Coding

SWE-bench Verified
GPT-4.1 mini23.6%
Source
Qwen3.8 Max—
Not directly comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.1
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max86.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
SWE-bench Pro
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max67.7%
Source
Not directly comparable
DeepSWE
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max56.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
NL2Repo
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max55.9%
Source
Not directly comparable
FrontierSWE
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max73.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
MLS-Bench Lite
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max41.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
PaperBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max93.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
VulcanBench v3
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max81.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
OpenHarmony Bench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max60.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
FrontierSWE v2
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max15.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
LiveCodeBench (Vals)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max87.9%
Source
Not directly comparable
SWE-bench (Vals)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max85.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
Bug Hunt Bench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max25.7 fixes
Source
Not directly comparable

Reasoning

MRCRv2
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max92.9%
Source
Not directly comparable
LongBench v2
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max66.3%
Source
Not directly comparable

Multimodal

MMMU-Pro
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max82.3%
Source
Not directly comparable
MathVision
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max95.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
MathVision w/ Python
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max97.7%
Source
Not directly comparable
BabyVision
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max82.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
BabyVision w/ Python
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max91.3%
Source
Not directly comparable
ZeroBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max24.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
ZeroBench w/ Python
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max49.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
MedXpertQA (MM)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max80.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
ScreenSpot Pro
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max84.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
Vision2Web
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max69.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
CharXiv w/o tools
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max88.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
CharXiv
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max93.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
OmniDocBench 1.5
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max92.1%
Source
Not directly comparable
OCRBench V2
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max74.2%
Source
Not directly comparable
CC-OCR
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max79.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
RealWorldQA
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max88.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
ERQA
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max77.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
SimpleVQA
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max75.0%
Source
Not directly comparable
PerceptionBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max63.5%
Source
Not directly comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max90.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
VideoMMMU
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max88.7%
Source
Not directly comparable
MMVU
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max82.4%
Source
Not directly comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max90.8%
Source
Not directly comparable
LVBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max81.8%
Source
Not directly comparable

Knowledge

MMLU
GPT-4.1 mini87.5%
Source
Qwen3.8 Max—
Not directly comparable
GPQA
GPT-4.1 mini64.2%
Source
Qwen3.8 Max92.6%
Source
Qwen3.8 Max leads this result
GPQA-D
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max92.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
HLE
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max43.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
HLE w/o tools
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max43.6%
Source
Not directly comparable
GPQA Diamond (Vals)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max93.7%
Source
Not directly comparable
MMLU-Pro (Vals)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max88.6%
Source
Not directly comparable

Instruction following

IFEval
GPT-4.1 mini88.5%
Source
Qwen3.8 Max—
Not directly comparable
IFBench
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max82.8%
Source
Not directly comparable

Math

FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)
Shared source
GPT-4.1 mini6.667%
Qwen3.8 Max74.737%
Qwen3.8 Max leads this result
FrontierMath v2 (Tier 4)
GPT-4.1 mini—
Qwen3.8 Max46.341%
Source
Not directly comparable

69 public results · 2 shared

Related comparisons

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Last updated October 29, 2026

GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.8 Max

Decision reading

Which one for your work

Coding work

Agentic work

Long documents

Chat turn cost

Cache-heavy agent loop cost

Repository review cost

Which one for a specific job

What is actually comparable

Shape of the matched evidence

Category results, on a stated basis

Knowledge

Coding

Instruction following

Agentic

Reasoning

Multimodal

Multilingual

Math

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Cache-heavy agent loop

Specification differences

Context window

API model ID

Cached-input rate

Documented inputs

Documented outputs

Provider availability

Reasoning profile

Weight access

License

Release date

If you already use one of these models

Questions

Which is better, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Which is better for coding, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Which is better for agentic tasks, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Which costs less, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Which has the larger context window, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.8 Max?

Self-host vs API cost

Benchmark evidence

Agentic

Coding

Reasoning

Multimodal

Knowledge

Instruction following

Math

Related comparisons

Watch GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.8 Max