Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Pick Qwen 3.8-Max for near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58 or large 1m-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video). Choose Hunyuan Hy4 Preview if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Qwen 3.8-Max if you want a managed API.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) and Qwen 3.8-Max (Alibaba) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Qwen 3.8-Max is alibaba's flagship mixture-of-experts model — near-frontier on independent tests (AA Index 58) at a fraction of US-flagship pricing, with open weights promised but not yet shipped. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences
Price: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is about 2.4× cheaper on input ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens vs $2/$6 per 1M tokens) — meaningful once you are processing millions of tokens a month.
Context window: 1M+ tokens vs 1M — within a few percent of each other, so treat this as a tie and test on your own long inputs, since usable recall varies by model.
Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 25 days (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Specifications
Spec
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen 3.8-Max
Provider
Tencent (China)
Alibaba (China)
Released
August 28, 2026
August 3, 2026
Context window
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
1M (~1,573 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
$2/$6 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
No — API only
Modalities
text
text, image, video, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
GPQA Diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it runs cheaper at $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens.
Terminal-Bench (85.4): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Qwen 3.8-Max is comparatively weak here — flashier coding/agentic benchmarks (e.g. Terminal-Bench 86.6) are Alibaba's own, not independently reproduced
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and its weights are open while Qwen 3.8-Max is API-only.
Near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58: Qwen 3.8-Max — Qwen 3.8-Max lists near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58 among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Large 1M-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video): Qwen 3.8-Max — Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is comparatively weak here — sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump
Mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token: Qwen 3.8-Max — Qwen 3.8-Max lists mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Lowest cost at scale: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens it undercuts Qwen 3.8-Max, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases: Qwen 3.8-Max — Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.
A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Qwen 3.8-Max is API-only.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3): Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58: Qwen 3.8-Max — That is its strongest area.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs are real: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Qwen 3.8-Max: where it fits
Alibaba's flagship mixture-of-experts model — near-frontier on independent tests (AA Index 58) at a fraction of US-flagship pricing, with open weights promised but not yet shipped. Released August 3, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58, large 1M-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video), mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token, and $2/$6 per million tokens — far below US flagships like Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.
Its trade-offs: open weights were announced for release but had not shipped as of mid-August 2026 — a closed API for now, active-parameter count is not officially disclosed by Alibaba, flashier coding/agentic benchmarks (e.g. Terminal-Bench 86.6) are Alibaba's own, not independently reproduced, and trails the very top models (Opus 5, Fable 5, GPT-5.6 Sol) on independent tests. At $2 in / $6 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
The defining split here is open vs. closed. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Qwen 3.8-Max gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3) while Qwen 3.8-Max leans toward near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Qwen 3.8-Max is API-metered at $2/$6 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.
Which has the bigger context window?
Effectively neither — 1M+ tokens vs 1M is a difference of a few percent. Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.
Can I use both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen 3.8-Max together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, Qwen 3.8-Max and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 25 days after Qwen 3.8-Max.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview vs Qwen 3.8-Max
Tencent · China | Alibaba · China · Updated June 2026
Quick verdict
Pick Hunyuan Hy4 Preview for gpqa diamond (92.3) or terminal-bench (85.4). Pick Qwen 3.8-Max for near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58 or large 1m-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video). Choose Hunyuan Hy4 Preview if you need self-hosting or data privacy; Qwen 3.8-Max if you want a managed API.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview (Tencent) and Qwen 3.8-Max (Alibaba) are two of the models people most often weigh against each other in 2026. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Qwen 3.8-Max is alibaba's flagship mixture-of-experts model — near-frontier on independent tests (AA Index 58) at a fraction of US-flagship pricing, with open weights promised but not yet shipped. They diverge most on price, context window and open vs. closed weights — each quantified below from the models' real specs.
Key differences at a glance
▸Price: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is about 2.4× cheaper on input ($0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens vs $2/$6 per 1M tokens) — meaningful once you are processing millions of tokens a month.
▸Context window: 1M+ tokens vs 1M — within a few percent of each other, so treat this as a tie and test on your own long inputs, since usable recall varies by model.
▸Recency: Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is the newer model by about 25 days (released August 28, 2026), usually meaning fresher training data and capabilities.
Side-by-side specs
Spec
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen 3.8-Max
Provider
Tencent (China)
Alibaba (China)
Released
August 28, 2026
August 3, 2026
Context window
1M+ tokens (~1,500 pages)
1M (~1,573 pages)
Price (in/out)
$0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens
$2/$6 per 1M tokens
Open weight?
Yes — self-hostable
No — API only
Modalities
text
text, image, video, code
SWE-Bench Verified
Not published
Not published
MRCR v2 @ 1M
Not published
Not published
Who wins what
GPQA Diamond (92.3)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and it runs cheaper at $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens.
Terminal-Bench (85.4)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Qwen 3.8-Max is comparatively weak here — flashier coding/agentic benchmarks (e.g. Terminal-Bench 86.6) are Alibaba's own, not independently reproduced
SWE-bench Multilingual (82.9)
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline — and its weights are open while Qwen 3.8-Max is API-only.
Near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58
Qwen 3.8-Max
Qwen 3.8-Max lists near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58 among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Large 1M-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video)
Qwen 3.8-Max
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is comparatively weak here — sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump
Mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token
Qwen 3.8-Max
Qwen 3.8-Max lists mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token among its strengths; Hunyuan Hy4 Preview does not.
Lowest cost at scale
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens, it is the cheaper of the two — the gap dominates the bill on high-volume workloads.
Which should you pick?
A cost-sensitive startup shipping high volume
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
At $0.834/$2.501 per 1M tokens it undercuts Qwen 3.8-Max, and on millions of tokens that margin decides the monthly bill.
Someone analysing very long documents or codebases
→ Qwen 3.8-Max
Larger 1M window fits more in one prompt.
A team with data-privacy or self-hosting needs
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
Open weights let you run it on your own hardware; Qwen 3.8-Max is API-only.
Anyone whose priority is gpqa diamond (92.3)
→ Hunyuan Hy4 Preview
It is specifically built for that.
Anyone whose priority is near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58
→ Qwen 3.8-Max
That is its strongest area.
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview: where it fits
Tencent's open-sourced (Apache 2.0) next-generation Hunyuan flagship preview, released August 28, 2026 as a 770B-parameter (49B active) MoE model that helped optimize its own training pipeline. Released August 28, 2026 by Tencent, it is built for gPQA Diamond (92.3), terminal-Bench (85.4), sWE-bench Multilingual (82.9), and large jump in long-horizon coding vs prior Hunyuan model (DeepSWE 28.0 to 64.3).
Its trade-offs are real: text-only, no native vision support, labeled a 'preview', not yet Tencent's finalized GA flagship, and sWE-Marathon score still low in absolute terms (31.9) despite a large relative jump. At $0.834 in / $2.501 out per million tokens, it sits in the budget price band.
Qwen 3.8-Max: where it fits
Alibaba's flagship mixture-of-experts model — near-frontier on independent tests (AA Index 58) at a fraction of US-flagship pricing, with open weights promised but not yet shipped. Released August 3, 2026 by Alibaba, it is built for near-frontier quality at value pricing — Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index 58, large 1M-token context with multimodal input (text, image, video), mixture-of-experts design: ~2.4T total parameters (Alibaba-reported), a fraction active per token, and $2/$6 per million tokens — far below US flagships like Claude Opus 5 and GPT-5.6 Sol.
Its trade-offs: open weights were announced for release but had not shipped as of mid-August 2026 — a closed API for now, active-parameter count is not officially disclosed by Alibaba, flashier coding/agentic benchmarks (e.g. Terminal-Bench 86.6) are Alibaba's own, not independently reproduced, and trails the very top models (Opus 5, Fable 5, GPT-5.6 Sol) on independent tests. At $2 in / $6 out per million tokens, it sits in the mid price band.
The bottom line for this matchup
The defining split here is open vs. closed. Hunyuan Hy4 Preview gives you weights you control — self-host it, fine-tune it, keep data in-house, pay only for hardware. Qwen 3.8-Max gives you a managed, always-updated API with no infrastructure to run. Teams with GPUs, privacy requirements, or huge volume often favour the open model; teams that want zero ops and the latest capabilities favour the closed one. Capability is close enough that this operational question, not the benchmark, usually decides it.
Want both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen 3.8-Max without two subscriptions? LumiChats gives you these plus 40+ models under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day) — draft with one, cross-check with the other.
Is Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max better for coding?
Public SWE-Bench figures are not available for either model, so the honest test is your own repository — run an identical real bug through both. By design, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview leans toward gpqa diamond (92.3) while Qwen 3.8-Max leans toward near-frontier quality at value pricing — artificial analysis intelligence index 58, and that positioning usually predicts which feels better on your codebase.
Which is cheaper, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview is open-weight, so self-hosting means no per-token fee (you pay for hardware instead), while Qwen 3.8-Max is API-metered at $2/$6 per 1M tokens. For most teams without GPUs, the API model is cheaper to start; at very high volume, self-hosting can win.
Which has the bigger context window?
Effectively neither — 1M+ tokens vs 1M is a difference of a few percent. Remember advertised ≠ usable: recall typically degrades before the ceiling.
Can I use both Hunyuan Hy4 Preview and Qwen 3.8-Max together?
Yes — a multi-model platform like LumiChats gives you Hunyuan Hy4 Preview, Qwen 3.8-Max and 40+ others under one ₹69/day pass (about $1/day), so you can draft with one and cross-check with the other instead of buying two subscriptions.
Which is newer, Hunyuan Hy4 Preview or Qwen 3.8-Max?
Hunyuan Hy4 Preview — released August 28, 2026, about 25 days after Qwen 3.8-Max.
Specifications and benchmarks reflect publicly reported figures as of June 2026 and may change as providers release updates. Always verify on your own workload.