ModelRefs / QwQ 32B vs Gemma 3 27B
QwQ 32B vs Gemma 3 27B
QwQ 32B vs Gemma 3 27B: side-by-side benchmarks, pricing, context windows, coding ability and deployment. Pick the right model for your stack.
Overview
Gemma 3 27B: Gemma 3 27B is the largest model in Google's third-generation open Gemma family, accepting text and images across a 128,000-token input context, with output drawn from the same budget. Images are normalised to 896x896 and encoded as 256 tokens each. Google cites support for more than 140 languages and an August 2024 knowledge cutoff. The weights are published under Google's Gemma Terms of Use rather than a standard open-source licence.
QwQ 32B: QwQ 32B is the reasoning model of Alibaba's Qwen series, a 32.5-billion-parameter causal language model (31.0 billion excluding embeddings) with 64 layers and grouped-query attention using 40 query and 8 key-value heads. It is built to work through a problem before answering rather than responding directly. The full context length is 131,072 tokens, though Qwen notes that prompts beyond 8,192 tokens require YaRN to be enabled. Released under Apache 2.0.
Context window: Gemma 3 27B accepts up to 128,000 tokens, QwQ 32B up to 131,072. Confirm the limit for your specific deployment channel before relying on it.
Gemma 3 27B vs QwQ 32B at a glance
| Attribute | Gemma 3 27B | QwQ 32B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba | |
| Released | 2025-02-01 | 2025-03-06 |
| Context window | 128,000 tokens | 131,072 tokens |
| Input price | $0.1/M tokens | $0.15/M tokens |
| Output price | $0.3/M tokens | $0.6/M tokens |
| Licence | Gemma-Terms | Apache-2.0 |
| Self-hostable | Yes, open weights | Yes, open weights |
| Modalities | text, vision | text |
Where they differ most
- Cost Efficiency: Gemma 3 27B 95%, QwQ 32B 91%. Gemma 3 27B leads on this dimension.
Capability scores are ModelRefs' own derived signals, not vendor claims or benchmark results. Validate against your own workload before relying on them.
Continue your research
Use these connected ModelRefs sections to compare alternatives, inspect implementation paths, and review the evidence and governance boundaries relevant to QwQ 32B vs Gemma 3 27B.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better, QwQ 32B or Gemma 3 27B?
QwQ 32B and Gemma 3 27B target different workloads — see the benchmark and pricing tables for a side-by-side answer.
Is QwQ 32B cheaper than Gemma 3 27B?
Compare $0.00015 vs $0.00010 on this page.