Thread

Qwen3.8 Max now ranked as the best overall model by agentic index

403 points · 261 comments · apitman

drnick1 · 1786043769 · focus · HN ↗
Why does an open weights model cost nearly the same as GPT5.6? $1.14 vs $1.23 on the cost index. Since you can't presumably run this on your own hardware given the model size and hence gain other things like privacy, I don't see any reason to move away from GPT at this rate.
1. apitman · 1786043949 · focus · HN ↗
  For one thing, providers of open models can't arbitrarily increase their prices without facing competition.
  1. frereubu · 1786044050 · focus · HN ↗
    But given the extremely low cost of switching, why wouldn't you use the cheaper one if they're comparable?
    apitman · 1786044248 · focus · HN ↗
    As low as it is, switching between providers on OpenRouter is still lower.
    That said, it's a fair point. For me, it boils down to things covered here: <a href="https://earendil.com/posts/session-portability/" rel="nofollow">https://earendil.com/posts/session-portability/
    Things like obscured reasoning traces.

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