---
title: "Compare alternatives to Qwen3 30B A3B · Undominated.ai"
canonical: https://undominated.ai/alternatives/qwen__qwen3-30b-a3b/
description: "23 alternatives score at least as high as Qwen3 30B A3B and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 18 preserve recorded capabilities; 5 have named trade-offs."
---

# Compare alternatives to Qwen3 30B A3B · Undominated.ai

> 23 alternatives score at least as high as Qwen3 30B A3B and cost no more under at least one listed workload. 18 preserve recorded capabilities; 5 have named trade-offs.

# Alternatives to Qwen3 30B A3B

Qwen · LMArena 1316.6 · $0.215/M on a balanced workload · prices as of 2026-10-06

 [Compare models](https://undominated.ai/compare/) Comparison context

Choose up to three standard models in Compare.

Requirements and prompt length apply in Compare. This page keeps its stated price basis and workload controls.

## 18 models are higher-scoring or cheaper, with neither dimension worse.

Of the 144 models carrying both an independent score and a published price at the same delivery mode, **23** score at least as high as Qwen3 30B A3B and cost no more under at least one listed workload, with at least one of those dimensions improved. **18** match or beat its recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning. **5** have a recorded capability loss, named on every row.

Dominance is not a property of a model. It is a property of a model, a capability lens and a workload, and all three are named on every row. Scores are LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset; prices are blended per million tokens. A higher score is not a drop-in replacement.

This page is built only while a candidate improves score or price without worsening the other under a listed workload. When that comparison no longer holds, it is not generated.

## Where it holds

| Workload | Qwen3 30B A3B $/M | Recorded capabilities preserved | Recorded capability losses |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Balanced | $0.215 | 14 | 4 |
| Summarise | $0.139 | 16 | 5 |
| Chat | $0.272 | 17 | 3 |
| Code gen | $0.348 | 14 | 3 |
| Agentic | $0.177 | 16 | 4 |

Workload mixes are defined on the [methodology page](/methodology/). Cached input is priced at the cached rate, and reasoning tokens at the worse of the reasoning and output rates.

## What you would be replacing

| Intelligence | 1316.6 |
| --- | --- |
| Context window | 131K |
| Max output | 16K |
| Input modes | text |
| Tool use | yes |
| Extended reasoning | yes |

Preserving recorded capabilities requires matching or beating these fields. [Full record for Qwen3 30B A3B](/models/qwen__qwen3-30b-a3b/), or [check Qwen3 30B A3B against the whole catalogue](/check/qwen__qwen3-30b-a3b/).

## Recorded capabilities preserved 18

Each option has a higher score or a lower price, with neither dimension worse under the listed workloads. It matches or beats Qwen3 30B A3B on recorded context, maximum output, input modes, tool use and extended reasoning.

| # | Model | Intelligence | $/M | Holds under |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4.1-flash/) DeepSeek | 1462.5 +145.9 | $0.182 | Balanced −15% Summarise −52% Chat −9% Agentic −41% |
| 2 | [MiMo-V2.6-Flash](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.6-flash/) Xiaomi | 1456.4 +139.8 | $0.175 | Balanced −19% Summarise −22% Chat −43% Code gen −39% Agentic −55% |
| 3 | [Gemma 4 31B](/models/google__gemma-4-31b-it/) Google | 1443.4 +126.8 | $0.205 | Balanced −5% Chat −10% Code gen −15% |
| 4 | [Gemma 4 26B A4B](/models/google__gemma-4-26b-a4b-it/) Google | 1433.9 +117.3 | $0.127 | Balanced −41% Summarise −50% Chat −45% Code gen −41% Agentic −55% |
| 5 | [DeepSeek V4 Flash 0423](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v4-flash/) DeepSeek | 1432.1 +115.5 | $0.113 | Balanced −48% Summarise −47% Chat −62% Code gen −60% Agentic −66% |
| 6 | [MiMo-V2.5](/models/xiaomi__mimo-v2.5/) Xiaomi | 1427.5 +110.9 | $0.175 | Balanced −19% Summarise −22% Chat −43% Code gen −39% Agentic −55% |
| 7 | [Step 3.5 Flash](/models/stepfun__step-3.5-flash/) StepFun | 1403 +86.4 | $0.150 | Balanced −30% Summarise −21% Chat −34% Code gen −37% Agentic −27% |
| 8 | [Qwen3.5-Flash](/models/qwen__qwen3.5-flash-02-23/) Qwen | 1397 +80.4 | $0.114 | Balanced −47% Summarise −46% Chat −47% Code gen −48% Agentic −47% |
| 9 | [GPT-6 Luna](/models/openai__gpt-6-luna/) OpenAI | 1391.5 +74.9 | $0.200 | Balanced −7% Summarise −32% Chat −14% Code gen −4% Agentic −40% |
| 10 | [gpt-oss-120b](/models/openai__gpt-oss-120b/) OpenAI | 1365.4 +48.8 | $0.065 | Balanced −70% Summarise −73% Chat −68% Code gen −67% Agentic −71% |
| 11 | [GLM 4.7 Flash](/models/z-ai__glm-4.7-flash/) Z.ai | 1350.9 +34.3 | $0.145 | Balanced −33% Summarise −55% Chat −33% Code gen −25% Agentic −54% |
| 12 | [Qwen3 32B](/models/qwen__qwen3-32b/) Qwen | 1340.1 +23.5 | $0.130 | Balanced −40% Summarise −35% Chat −41% Code gen −43% Agentic −38% |
| 13 | [GPT-5 Nano](/models/openai__gpt-5-nano/) OpenAI | 1320 tie | $0.138 | Balanced −36% Summarise −61% Chat −35% Code gen −26% Agentic −57% |
| 14 | [Granite 4.2 8B](/models/ibm-granite__granite-4.2-8b/) IBM | 1317.8 tie | $0.108 | Balanced −50% Summarise −59% Chat −55% Code gen −51% Agentic −65% |
| 15 | [GLM 5.3 Flash](/models/z-ai__glm-5.3-flash/) Z.ai | 1469.6 +153 | $0.133 summarise | Summarise −4% Chat −7% Agentic −26% |
| 16 | [Hy3](/models/tencent__hy3/) Tencent | 1440.7 +124.1 | $0.124 summarise | Summarise −11% Chat −4% Agentic −25% |
| 17 | [DeepSeek V3.2](/models/deepseek__deepseek-v3.2/) DeepSeek | 1424.5 +107.9 | $0.269 chat | Chat −1% Code gen −8% |
| 18 | [GLM 4.5 Air](/models/z-ai__glm-4.5-air/) Z.ai | 1383.9 +67.3 | $0.136 summarise | Summarise −2% Agentic −1% |

## Alternatives with recorded capability losses 5

These improve score or price without worsening the other under the listed workloads, but reduce at least one recorded capability. Read the last column before switching.

| Model | Intelligence | $/M | Holds under | Recorded capability loss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507](/models/qwen__qwen3-235b-a22b-2507/) Qwen | 1419.3 +102.7 | $0.205 | Balanced −5% Summarise −19% Agentic −10% | no extended reasoning |
| [Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507](/models/qwen__qwen3-30b-a3b-instruct-2507/) Qwen | 1384.1 +67.5 | $0.143 | Balanced −34% Summarise −28% Chat −36% Code gen −38% Agentic −31% | no extended reasoning |
| [Gemma 3 27B](/models/google__gemma-3-27b-it/) Google | 1357.8 +41.2 | $0.100 | Balanced −53% Summarise −40% Chat −59% Code gen −63% Agentic −48% | no extended reasoning |
| [Gemma 3 12B](/models/google__gemma-3-12b-it/) Google | 1334.2 +17.6 | $0.075 | Balanced −65% Summarise −60% Chat −67% Code gen −68% Agentic −63% | no extended reasoning |
| [Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Instruct](/models/qwen__qwen3-next-80b-a3b-instruct/) Qwen | 1417.3 +100.7 | $0.132 summarise | Summarise −5% | no extended reasoning |

## What this compares, and what it leaves out

 - Quality is LMArena Elo, used under CC BY 4.0 from the official dataset. The 95% confidence interval on a difference between two scores is about ±10.47 points, so a gap smaller than that is marked *tie* rather than an improvement — see [significance bands](/significance/).
 - 204 further models at this delivery mode carry a price but no independent score. They are absent from the comparison in both directions — unrated is not a zero, and an unmeasured model is neither an alternative nor a worse buy.
 - Retired models are never offered as an alternative, and a model only competes against its own delivery mode: batch trades latency for price, so it is not a like-for-like swap.
 - Nothing here measures latency, throughput, rate limits or how a model behaves on your prompts. Two models with the same index score are not interchangeable.
 - Models with no higher-scoring or cheaper alternative that is no worse on the other axis are on the [value frontier](/frontier/). Models with such an alternative are [listed here](/alternatives/).

## Continue your investigation

 - [Check requirements](/check/)
- [Compare exact differences](/compare/)
- [Set a quality floor](/cheapest-at/)
- [Inspect tier boundaries](/cliffs/)