Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Updated October 21, 2026. 49 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 37.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 28.7 for Gemini 2.5 Flash.
Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash when a solved task costs $0.466 against $1.19, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 1M tokens.
- Shared results
- 49
- Gemini 2.5 Flash only
- 20
- Qwen3.6 Plus only
- 34
- Like-for-like categories
- 8 of 9
Shared results can support a head-to-head reading. Results only one model has describe coverage, not superiority.
Which one for your work
Each card is decided by one number both models carry. Where only one has it, the card says so and makes no call.
Coding
Vibe Coding Index, four public coding benchmarks
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus scores 37.4 against 28.7.
One benchmark behind each score
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 27.0 against 15.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a GPQA Diamond result, 87.4%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a AIME result, 94.6%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a MMLU Pro result, 87.7%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 1243 against 1074.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash takes 1.05M tokens against 1M.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus
Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.0015, Qwen3.6 Plus $0.0013 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash $0.466, Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Gemini 2.5 Flash 28.7 from 1 benchmark, Qwen3.6 Plus 37.4 from 1 benchmark.
- Widest category
- Agentic work, 47.3 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- τ²-Bench Telecom: Gemini 2.5 Flash 31.6% against Qwen3.6 Plus 97.7%, 66.1 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Gemini 2.5 Flash $2.50 against Qwen3.6 Plus $1.95 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Gemini 2.5 Flash takes 1.05M tokens, Qwen3.6 Plus 1M.
Benchmark by benchmark
First the score: boards each model leads, per category, where both have a result. Then every board, a category to a fold; bars are each result on a 0 to 100 scale, so compare the two in a row, not one row with another.
| Category | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Bars | Qwen3.6 Plus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 3 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 5 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 1 | 4 | ||
| Web design | 0 | 7 | ||
| General | 3 | 20 | ||
| All shared boards | 4 | 45 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index03
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench Verified | 28.7% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1461 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 54.5 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 86.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 73.4% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.6% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 11.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| ProgramBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 53.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run) | 69.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 13.6% | 43.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Terminal-Bench | 17.1% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 670.1 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1423 | 1467 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1425 | 1462 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1454 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1463 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1472 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 20 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 15.5 | 27.0 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 142.9 | 147.3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 40.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 7.7% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 14.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 32.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 31.6% | 97.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| BALROG | 33.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $549 | $5,115 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 32 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 87.4% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 79.0% | 88.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 12.1% | 27.8% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | Not measured | 88.4% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| ARC-AGI | 33.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| ARC-AGI-2 | 2.5% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| SimpleBench | 41.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 12.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1422 | 1448 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1426 | 1454 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1420 | 1455 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1245 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1244 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 94.6% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| AA Math Index | 73.3 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| AIME 2025 (Artificial Analysis run) | 73.3% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | Not measured | 93.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 38.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1411 | 1449 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1422 | 1448 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 6 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index14
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 87.7% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 51.5% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 61.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 74.7% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 68.0% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 40.4% | 36.9% | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run) | 83.2% | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 44.1% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text: science | 1433 | 1439 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1428 | 1442 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1430 | 1437 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1404 | 1430 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here | |||
Web designLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index07
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | 1074 | 1243 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: UI components | 1005 | 1233 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: game dev | 1005 | 1211 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: data viz | 1060 | 1228 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: 3D | 1021 | 1202 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: all code categories | 1059 | 1236 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: SVG | 1018 | 1160 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1115 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index320
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 44.8% | 44.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 83.0% | 77.0% | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 51.5% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| IFBench | 50.3% | 75.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 65.3% | 78.3% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| DTBench | 76.5% | 81.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMCA | 27.5% | 33.1% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 20.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text | 1417 | 1436 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1405 | 1424 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1400 | 1404 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Vision | 1235 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: English | 1418 | 1445 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1409 | 1424 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1449 | 1477 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: German | 1417 | 1451 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1396 | 1390 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1385 | 1379 | Gemini 2.5 Flash |
| LMArena Text: French | 1432 | 1455 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1422 | 1432 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1415 | 1434 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1413 | 1433 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1408 | 1438 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1419 | 1439 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1405 | 1418 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1393 | 1402 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1239 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1284 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1237 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1225 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1277 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1252 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1241 | Not measured | Only Gemini 2.5 Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 5 boards here | |||
What each workload costs
Three fixed token mixes at each model's listed price, so per-token rates become a bill.
Chat turn
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.6 Plus costs less
Listed OpenRouter rates, without cache or batch discounts. A workload that does not fit a model's context window would need splitting.
Specification differences
The leading value in a row is marked; a row with a missing value names no leader. Our two rows are marked in red.
| Specification | Google Gemini 2.5 Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | June 17, 2025 | April 2, 2026 |
| Context window | 1.05M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.30 | $0.325 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.50 | $1.95 |
| Coding index | 28.7 | 37.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 1 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.466 | $1.19 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Gemini 2.5 Flash better than Qwen3.6 Plus for coding?
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 37.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 28.7 for Gemini 2.5 Flash. Pick Gemini 2.5 Flash when a solved task costs $0.466 against $1.19, or when the context window is larger, 1.05M against 1M tokens.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Gemini 2.5 Flash costs $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.50 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.325 and $1.95. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Gemini 2.5 Flash costs $0.466 and Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Which has the bigger context window, Gemini 2.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Gemini 2.5 Flash, with 1.05M tokens against 1M.
How many benchmarks is the Gemini 2.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Plus comparison based on?
49 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Gemini 2.5 Flash's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Qwen3.6 Plus's on 1. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.