gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3-Max
Benchmarks, API pricing and specs, head to head. Data updated 2026-06-10.
OpenAI · Aug 2025
OpenAI's open-weights MoE reasoning model under Apache 2.0 — near o4-mini quality, runnable on a single 80GB GPU.
Alibaba (Qwen) · Sep 2025
Alibaba's trillion-parameter API flagship — frontier-adjacent quality with strong agentic tool use at mid-tier prices.
The verdict
gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3-Max split the 2 benchmarks they share evenly (1–1), so capability alone won't settle this one. On price the gap is dramatic: gpt-oss-120b works out roughly 12x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 131K for gpt-oss-120b. And gpt-oss-120b is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
Benchmark head-to-head 1–1
Specs & pricing
| gpt-oss-120b | Qwen3-Max | |
|---|---|---|
| modhub Index | — | 80.5 |
| Input price / 1M | $0.1 | $1.2 |
| Output price / 1M | $0.5 | $6 |
| Context window | 131K | 262K |
| Max output | 131K | 66K |
| Open weights | yes (Apache 2.0) | no |
| Reasoning model | yes | yes |
| Multimodal input | text | text |
| Knowledge cutoff | Jun 2024 | Jun 2025 |
| Released | Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 |
| Example monthly cost* | $1.75 | $21.00 |
* 10M input + 1.5M output tokens per month at list prices, no caching. Green = better value on that row.
Frequently asked questions
- Which is better, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3-Max?
- gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3-Max split the 2 benchmarks they share evenly (1–1), so capability alone won't settle this one. On price the gap is dramatic: gpt-oss-120b works out roughly 12x cheaper per blended million tokens. Qwen3-Max also takes 262K of context versus 131K for gpt-oss-120b. And gpt-oss-120b is open-weights (Apache 2.0), so it can be self-hosted — a structural advantage if data control or vendor independence matters.
- Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3-Max?
- gpt-oss-120b costs $0.1/$0.5 per million input/output tokens, while Qwen3-Max costs $1.2/$6. For a typical workload of 10M input and 1.5M output tokens per month, that's $1.75 versus $21.00.
- Which model is better for coding, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3-Max?
- We don't yet track SWE-bench Verified results for both models; check their individual pages for coding-related scores.