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Last updated Nov 13, 2026

Qwen4-Max vs Qwen3.8-Max: Should You Switch? A Point-by-Point Comparison

Published Nov 13, 2026 · Last updated Nov 13, 2026

The most practical question after a new generation lands: should current Qwen3.8-Max users switch? We align every confirmed spec and give a direct verdict up front: keep production on Qwen3.8-Max; use Qwen4-Max-Preview only to evaluate on your own real tasks.

Point by point

DimensionQwen4-Max-PreviewQwen3.8-Max
StatusPreview (Nov 11–25, then retired)GA since Aug 2026
APIToken Plan subscription onlyPublic pay-per-token
API priceNot published$2 in / $6 out per 1M tokens
Context1M tokens1M tokens
Max output393K (shared with reasoning; 32,768 default in Qwen Code)131K
BenchmarksNoneVendor table published
AA indexNot listed45 (Sep 27, 2026)

Only two changes are truly generational

Context is unchanged at 1M. The real changes: max output jumps from 131K to 393K, so long documents, long code and long agent traces truncate far less often; and access regresses from open pay-per-token to a subscription-only preview — no public API, no unit price, terms that bar production automation, and a hard retirement date of November 25. On availability, this generation is a step backwards by design: it is a preview.

Capability evidence: signals, no scores

On capability there are only anecdotal signals: a coding task matching 3.8's 20/20 pass at nearly 7x the speed, agent runs far ahead of 3.8-Flash, and so on (see our test write-ups). No formal benchmark proves it broadly stronger than 3.8 — StealthMark's estimates even put its general intelligence below 3.8, on an unverified scale.

Our take: the selection logic is simple. Stability, price transparency and production eligibility all favour 3.8 today; the output ceiling and early speed signals make 4-Max worth evaluating. The right move: before November 25, run your own real workloads on 4-Max, archive the results, and decide on migration when GA and official scores exist.

Reference source: this article is an original rewrite produced by this site; facts and figures were checked against Apidog 对比与本站规格核对(2026-11-11)

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