Phi 4 vs Qwen3 8B

Microsoft

60#208

Alibaba

61#206

Signal-by-Signal Comparison

Signal	Phi 4	Delta	Qwen3 8B
Capabilities	33	-33	67
Benchmarks	65	+5	60
Pricing	100	+0	100
Context window size	67	-14	81
Recency	28	-20	48
Output Capacity	70	+5	65
Overall Result	3 wins	of 6	3 wins

It's a tie - both models win 3 signals each

Score History

Score History (25 data points)

Phi 4Qwen3 8B

Phi 4

60.2

current score

Leader

Qwen3 8B

right now

Qwen3 8B

current score

LMMarketCap.com

Interactive Price Comparison

Quick presets

Monthly API calls

100Kcalls/month

Avg. input tokens/call

1,000tokens (~1,333 chars)

Avg. output tokens/call

500tokens (~667 chars)

Phi 4

Microsoft

Best Value

Per request$0.000140

Daily$0.47

Monthly$14.00

Annual$168.00

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba

Per request$0.000344

Daily$1.15

Monthly$34.45

Annual$413.40

Phi 4 saves you $20.45/month

That's $245.40/year compared to Qwen3 8B at your current usage level of 100K calls/month.

59% cheaper

Choose Phi 4 for cost optimization

Phi 4 pricing:

Input:$0.07/M tokens

Output:$0.14/M tokens

Qwen3 8B pricing:

Input:$0.12/M tokens

Output:$0.45/M tokens

Phi 4

Microsoft

Composite Score

Winner

Qwen3 8B

Alibaba

Composite Score

Signal-by-Signal Comparison

Metric	Phi 4	Qwen3 8B	Winner
Overall Score	60	61	Qwen3 8B
Rank	#208	#206	Qwen3 8B
Quality Rank	#208	#206	Qwen3 8B
Adoption Rank	#208	#206	Qwen3 8B
Parameters	--	8B	--
Context Window	16K	131K	Qwen3 8B
Pricing	$0.07/$0.14/M	$0.12/$0.45/M	--
Signal Scores
Capabilities	33	67	Qwen3 8B
Benchmarks	65	60	Phi 4
Pricing	100	100	Phi 4
Context window size	67	81	Qwen3 8B
Recency	28	48	Qwen3 8B
Output Capacity	70	65	Phi 4

Benchmark Head-to-Head(11 benchmarks)

Phi 4: 0Qwen3 8B: 1

Phi 4

Qwen3 8B

Normalized 0-100%

MMLU

84.8%-

MMLU-Pro

70.5%-

GPQA Diamond

56.1%-

MATH-500

80.4%-

HumanEval

82.6%-

IFEval

80.1%-

BBH

78%-

ARC-Challenge

95.5%-

Arena Elo

12561347

LiveBench

35.7%-

BigCodeBench

45.5%-

Benchmark Interpretation

Our score (0-100) is driven by benchmark performance (90%) from Arena Elo ratings, MMLU, GPQA, HumanEval, SWE-bench, and 15+ standardized evaluations. Capabilities and context window serve as tiebreakers (10%). Learn more about our methodology.

Phi 4Competitive

Scores 60/100 (rank #208), placing it in the top 29% of all 290 models tracked.

Raw Quality0/100

Cost Efficiency0/100

Speed0/100

Qwen3 8BCompetitive

Scores 61/100 (rank #206), placing it in the top 29% of all 290 models tracked.

Raw Quality0/100

Cost Efficiency0/100

Speed0/100

With only a 1-point gap, these models are in the same performance tier. The practical difference in output quality is minimal - your choice should depend on pricing, latency requirements, and specific feature needs.

When to Use Each Model

Choose Phi 4 when you need:

High-volume production workloads where API costs must be minimized
Self-hosted deployments where you need full control over the model

Choose Qwen3 8B when you need:

Processing long documents or large codebases (131K token context)
Agentic applications using tool/function calling
Step-by-step reasoning and chain-of-thought problem solving
Self-hosted deployments where you need full control over the model

Cost-Performance Analysis

Phi 4Best Value

Input cost$0.07/M tokens

Output cost$0.14/M tokens

Cost per quality point$0.003

Est. monthly (1M tokens/day)$3.15

Qwen3 8B

Input cost$0.12/M tokens

Output cost$0.45/M tokens

Cost per quality point$0.009

Est. monthly (1M tokens/day)$8.58

Phi 4 offers 63% better value per quality point. At 1M tokens/day, you'd spend $3.15/month with Phi 4 vs $8.58/month with Qwen3 8B - a $5.43 monthly difference.

Latency & Speed

Phi 4Faster

Speed score0/100

Qwen3 8B

Speed score0/100

Both models have comparable response speeds. For most applications, the latency difference is negligible.

When latency matters most: Interactive chatbots, IDE code completion, real-time translation, and user-facing applications where response time directly impacts experience. For batch processing, background summarization, or offline analysis, latency is less critical.

Example Use Cases

Code generation & review

Based on overall model capabilities and architecture for coding tasks like generating functions, debugging, and refactoring

Phi 4

Customer support chatbot

Suitable for user-facing chat with competitive response times. Phi 4 also offers lower per-token costs for high-volume support

Phi 4

Long document analysis

Larger context window (131K tokens) can process longer documents, contracts, and research papers in a single pass

Qwen3 8B

Batch data extraction

Lower output pricing ($0.14/M) reduces costs when processing thousands of records daily

Phi 4

Creative writing & content

Higher overall composite score (61/100) correlates with better nuance, coherence, and style in long-form content

Qwen3 8B

Which Should You Choose?

Our recommendation:

Qwen3 8B

Phi 4 and Qwen3 8B are extremely close in overall performance (only 0.7999999999999972 points apart). Your best choice depends entirely on which specific strengths matter most for your use case.

By Use Case

Best for Quality

Phi 4

Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent

Best for Cost

Phi 4

63% lower pricing; better value at scale

Best for Reliability

Phi 4

Higher uptime and faster response speeds

Best for Prototyping

Phi 4

Stronger community support and better developer experience

Best for Production

Phi 4

Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale

Phi 4

by Microsoft

Choose for Quality - Marginally better benchmark scores; both are excellent
Choose for Cost - 63% lower pricing; better value at scale
Choose for Reliability - Higher uptime and faster response speeds
Choose for Prototyping - Stronger community support and better developer experience
Choose for Production - Wider enterprise adoption and proven at scale