Model Comparison 2026

GPT-5.3-Codex vs Qwen3 235B A22B

GPT-5.3-Codex
OpenAI · Balanced · Proprietary
$5.42/1M · 400K ctx
Qwen3 235B A22B
Alibaba (Qwen) · Budget · Open weights
$0.09/1M · 262K ctx

Community Vote

Pick a winner in each dimension — change your vote anytime.

Output Quality
Correctness and depth of what it produces
Agentic Ability
Tool calls, instruction-following, and multi-step tasks
Speed
Tokens per second and time-to-first-token
Value for $
How much capability you get per dollar
Reliability
Consistent results — fewer refusals, loops, and format breaks

Specs & Pricing, Side by Side

Spec
GPT-5.3-Codex
Qwen3 235B
Maker
OpenAI
Alibaba (Qwen)
Blended price / 1M
$5.42
$0.09
Input / output
$1.75 in · $14 out / 1M tokens
$0.09 in · $0.10 out / 1M tokens
Context window
400K
262K
Open weights
No
Yes
Tool use
Yes
Yes
Reasoning
Yes
No
Output Quality
8.8
8.0
Agentic Ability
9.3
8.0
Speed
7.8
8.2
Value for $
7.8
10.0
Reliability
8.7
8.8

Pricing and capabilities synced from the OpenRouter catalogue. Scores are editorial (0–10).

Verdict: GPT-5.3-Codex or Qwen3 235B?

Updated 2026-06-22

Choose GPT-5.3-Codex if you want codex CLI users and dedicated coding agents. Choose Qwen3 235B A22B if you want self-hosted or ultra-cheap open-weight agents.

In our editorial scoring, Qwen3 235B A22B leads in 3 of five dimensions (speed, value for $ and reliability), while GPT-5.3-Codex leads in 2. On price, GPT-5.3-Codex runs about $5.42 per 1M tokens (blended) and is proprietary; Qwen3 235B A22B is about $0.09 and open-weight.

Where GPT-5.3-Codex falls short
  • Narrower than a general flagship outside coding
  • Mid-tier pricing
Full GPT-5.3-Codex breakdown →
Where Qwen3 235B falls short
  • Behind frontier models on quality
  • Needs real GPUs to self-host well
Full Qwen3 235B breakdown →

The model is half the story — the agent is the other half

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