o3 Mini vs Qwen3.6 27B

Qwen3.6 27B leads o3 Mini on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 21.4 to 12.5, and Qwen3.6 27B costs 1.6x less per output token ($2.70 vs $4.40 per million). Updated October 21, 2026; 17 benchmarks have a result for both.

Replace o3 Mini Replace Qwen3.6 27B

o3 MiniOpenAI

Coding: No data
Overall: 38.0
Output $/M: $4.40

Qwen3.6 27BQwen

Coding: 36.8
Overall: 45.3
Output $/M: $2.70

vs boards won of 17 shared, 2 tied

o3 Mini or Qwen3.6 27B: which to pick

Only Qwen3.6 27B has a coding score, 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; o3 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.

Compare them on price, context and the boards below.

Model Ao3 MiniOpenAINot benchmarkedNo coding benchmarkNo cost per solved task Model BQwen3.6 27BQwen36.8/1002 independent benchmarks$1.30 per solved task

17547

Shared results: 17
o3 Mini only: 54
Qwen3.6 27B only: 7
Like-for-like categories: 7 of 9

Only benchmarks that tested both models count toward a pick; a result only one model has is shown but not compared.

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, six public coding benchmarks
No call
Only Qwen3.6 27B has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.6 27B
Qwen3.6 27B leads, 21.4 against 12.5.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
No call
Only Qwen3.6 27B has a AA Agentic Index result, 18.5.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only o3 Mini has a GPQA Diamond result, 75.5%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only o3 Mini has a AIME result, 86.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only o3 Mini has a MMLU Pro result, 78.7%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.6 27B
Qwen3.6 27B takes 262K tokens against 200K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 27B
o3 Mini $0.0033, Qwen3.6 27B $0.0018 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Qwen3.6 27B has the number, $1.30.
Directional only

At a glance

Coding index: o3 Mini not benchmarked, Qwen3.6 27B 36.8 from 2 benchmarks.
Widest category: Agentic work, 62.9 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
Widest single gap: τ²-Bench Telecom: o3 Mini 31.3% against Qwen3.6 27B 94.2%, 62.9 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
Output price: o3 Mini $4.40 against Qwen3.6 27B $2.70 per million output tokens, 1.6x apart.
Context window: o3 Mini takes 200K tokens, Qwen3.6 27B 262K.

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.

Boards won, where both have a result
Category	Qwen3.6 27B	Ties
Coding	1	1 tie
Intelligence	2
Agentic work	1
Reasoning	3	1 tie
Math	2
Knowledge	2
General	4
All shared boards	15	2 ties

CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index01

Coding benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
Aider polyglot	60.4%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SWE-bench Verified	42.4%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SWE-bench Lite	32.3%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
AA Coding Index	Not measured	53.7	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
LiveCodeBench (Vals AI)	71.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI)	Not measured	70.0%	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI)	Not measured	11.9%	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
LiveCodeBench (Artificial Analysis run)	73.4%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SciCode	42.8%	42.8%	Tie
Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run)	6.8%	34.8%	Qwen3.6 27B
GSO-Bench	1.3%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
WeirdML	43.7%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Cybench	22.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: coding	1378	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: software and IT	1364	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SciCode	7.7%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here

IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Intelligence benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
AA Intelligence Index	12.5	21.4	Qwen3.6 27B
Epoch Capabilities Index	140.2	146.2	Qwen3.6 27B

Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01

Agentic work benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
AA Agentic Index	Not measured	18.5	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
τ²-Bench Telecom	31.3%	94.2%	Qwen3.6 27B
Neither model has a result on the other 39 boards here

ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index03

Reasoning benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
GPQA Diamond	75.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run)	77.3%	84.2%	Qwen3.6 27B
Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run)	12.0%	23.1%	Qwen3.6 27B
GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run)	77.0%	85.9%	Qwen3.6 27B
ARC-AGI	34.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
ARC-AGI-2	3.0%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SimpleBench	22.8%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Chess puzzles	15.0%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Mystery game puzzles	7.0%	7.0%	Tie
LMArena Text: hard prompts	1365	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: expert	1364	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: hard prompts in English	1375	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here

MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Math benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
AIME	86.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
MATH 500 (Vals AI)	91.8%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
MGSM (Vals AI)	91.3%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
OTIS Mock AIME	76.9%	91.1%	Qwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3	18.6%	35.1%	Qwen3.6 27B
FrontierMath, tier 4	0.0%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
MATH level 5	96.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: math	1396	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: mathematical work	1399	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 4 boards here

KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02

Knowledge benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
MMLU Pro	78.7%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LegalBench (Vals AI)	71.5%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
CaseLaw (Vals AI)	Not measured	53.2%	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
CorpFin (Vals AI)	45.3%	62.3%	Qwen3.6 27B
TaxEval (Vals AI)	69.4%	71.3%	Qwen3.6 27B
MortgageTax (Vals AI)	Not measured	68.3%	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
MedQA (Vals AI)	94.8%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
MMLU Pro (Artificial Analysis run)	80.2%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
SimpleQA Verified	15.3%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: science	1339	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare	1330	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: legal and government	1328	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: business and finance	1313	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 5 boards here

Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Web design benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
Neither model has a result on 9 boards here

GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04

General benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	Leader
SAGE (Vals AI)	Not measured	45.6%	Only Qwen3.6 27B measured
IFBench	67.1%	67.6%	Qwen3.6 27B
Long context reasoning (AA-LCR)	43.0%	77.3%	Qwen3.6 27B
DTBench	68.8%	78.1%	Qwen3.6 27B
LMCA	19.0%	34.5%	Qwen3.6 27B
Fiction.LiveBench	50.0%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Creative writing (Lech Mazur)	61.7%	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text	1337	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: instruction following	1337	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: creative writing	1286	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: English	1351	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: non-English	1319	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Chinese	1379	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: German	1303	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Japanese	1286	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Korean	1313	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: French	1334	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Spanish	1321	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Russian	1304	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: Polish	1294	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: multi-turn	1320	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: longer queries	1343	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: writing and language	1313	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
LMArena Text: entertainment and media	1283	Not measured	Only o3 Mini measured
Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here

Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared

Image generation benchmarks for o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Benchmark	o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B	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

o3 Mini$0.0033Fits in one request

Qwen3.6 27B$0.0018Fits in one request

Qwen3.6 27B costs less

Repository review

50K input + 3K output tokens

o3 Mini$0.068Fits in one request

Qwen3.6 27B$0.031Fits in one request

Qwen3.6 27B costs less

Agent loop

200K input + 10K output tokens

o3 Mini$0.264Exceeds the context window

Qwen3.6 27B$0.117Fits in one request

Qwen3.6 27B 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.

Specifications of o3 Mini and Qwen3.6 27B
Specification	OpenAI o3 Mini	Qwen3.6 27B
Maker	OpenAI	Qwen
Weights	No public weights listed	Open weights
Released	January 31, 2025	April 27, 2026
Context window	200K	262K
Input $/Mtok	$1.10	$0.45
Output $/Mtok	$4.40	$2.70
Coding index	Not benchmarked	36.8
Independent measurements behind it	0	2
Cost per solved task	Not computable	$1.30
Source	OpenRouter listing	OpenRouter listing

Questions

Is o3 Mini better than Qwen3.6 27B for coding?

Only Qwen3.6 27B has a coding score, 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; o3 Mini has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Compare them on price, context and the boards below.

Which is cheaper, o3 Mini or Qwen3.6 27B?

o3 Mini costs $1.10 per million input tokens and $4.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.45 and $2.70. Cost per solved task is known for Qwen3.6 27B only.

Which has the bigger context window, o3 Mini or Qwen3.6 27B?

Qwen3.6 27B, with 262K tokens against 200K.

How many benchmarks is the o3 Mini vs Qwen3.6 27B comparison based on?

17 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. o3 Mini's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.6 27B's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.

o3 Mini or Qwen3.6 27B: which to pick

Which one for your work

Coding

Intelligence

Agentic work

Reasoning

Math

Knowledge

Long documents

Everyday cost

Cost per solved task

At a glance

Benchmark by benchmark

What each workload costs

Chat turn

Repository review

Agent loop

Specification differences

Questions

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