Qwen3.5-27B vs Step 5 Preview
Updated October 21, 2026. 36 benchmarks have a result for both. Coding is ranked on the Vibe Coding Index; every other board is shown as published.
Decision reading
Pick Step 5 Preview for coding: it scores 71.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Qwen3.5-27B.
Pick Qwen3.5-27B when output tokens cost 1.3x less.
- Shared results
- 36
- Qwen3.5-27B only
- 17
- Step 5 Preview only
- 25
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview scores 71.4 against 22.6.
1 and 2 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview leads, 43.7 against 22.9.
Same board, both measured
Long documents
Listed context window
Step 5 Preview
Step 5 Preview takes 1.05M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5-27B
Qwen3.5-27B $0.0014, Step 5 Preview $0.0024 per turn.
List prices
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen3.5-27B 22.6 from 1 benchmark, Step 5 Preview 71.4 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 22.9 points apart on average over 5 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena WebDev: React: Qwen3.5-27B 1346 against Step 5 Preview 1583, 39.5 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.5-27B $2.16 against Step 5 Preview $2.70 per million output tokens, 1.3x apart.
- Context window
- Qwen3.5-27B takes 262K tokens, Step 5 Preview 1.05M.
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 | Qwen3.5-27B | Bars | Step 5 Preview | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 5 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 6 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 4 | ||
| General | 0 | 18 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 36 |
CodingLike-for-likeFour of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index05
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench coding | Not measured | 85.6% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| LMArena WebDev | 1358 | 1567 | Step 5 Preview |
| Terminal-Bench 4 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 31.8% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.4% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 39.0% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| IOI (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.1% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| SWE-bench Multimodal (Vals AI) | Not measured | 40.8% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| SciCode | Not measured | 58.9% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 32.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| WeirdML | 39.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| ALE-Bench | 349.4 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1427 | 1485 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1431 | 1473 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1346 | 1583 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1386 | 1556 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1550 | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 22 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 22.9 | 43.7 | Step 5 Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index13 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench research | Not measured | 72.8% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| LiveBench browser | Not measured | 24.0% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| LiveBench long agentic | Not measured | 27.5% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| SREBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 0.4% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 50.7% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 27.3% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 40.4% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 57.1% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| BioMysteryBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.4% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Terminal-Bench-Science (Vals AI) | Not measured | 2.9% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Vals Science Index | Not measured | 29.6% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 93.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | $202 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 26 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index06
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench reasoning | Not measured | 83.8% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| MysteryMechanism (Vals AI) | Not measured | 18.5% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 85.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.9% | 46.5% | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1415 | 1461 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1427 | 1485 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1429 | 1454 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision: diagrams | 1249 | 1308 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision: homework | 1256 | 1265 | Step 5 Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| ProofBench | Not measured | 42.0% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| LMArena Text: math | 1429 | 1458 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1429 | 1460 | Step 5 Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text: science | 1437 | 1454 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1425 | 1439 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1405 | 1437 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1399 | 1435 | Step 5 Preview |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench design | Not measured | 76.9% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index018
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LiveBench data analysis | Not measured | 63.5% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| Public Benefits Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 58.1% | Only Step 5 Preview measured |
| IFBench | 75.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 77.7% | 88.3% | Step 5 Preview |
| DTBench | 82.4% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMCA | 34.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Text | 1409 | 1440 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1393 | 1438 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1362 | 1409 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision | 1241 | 1265 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: English | 1425 | 1447 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1390 | 1428 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1478 | 1500 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: German | 1392 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1346 | 1383 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1359 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Text: French | 1410 | 1438 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1407 | 1441 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1390 | 1433 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1375 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1410 | 1437 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1413 | 1449 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1380 | 1425 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1363 | 1412 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision: English | 1246 | 1290 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision: Chinese | 1301 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: reading text | 1246 | 1282 | Step 5 Preview |
| LMArena Vision: humor | 1227 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: captioning | 1170 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: recognizing things | 1210 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| LMArena Vision: creative writing | 1224 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 15 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-27B | Step 5 Preview | 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
Qwen3.5-27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5-27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5-27B 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.
| Specification | Qwen3.5-27B | StepFun Step 5 Preview |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | StepFun |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | February 25, 2026 | October 8, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1.05M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.27 | $1.00 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.16 | $2.70 |
| Coding index | 22.6 | 71.4 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 1 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.5-27B better than Step 5 Preview for coding?
Pick Step 5 Preview for coding: it scores 71.4 on the Vibe Coding Index against 22.6 for Qwen3.5-27B. Pick Qwen3.5-27B when output tokens cost 1.3x less.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or Step 5 Preview?
Qwen3.5-27B costs $0.27 per million input tokens and $2.16 per million output tokens; Step 5 Preview costs $1.00 and $2.70. Cost per solved task is known for neither of them.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-27B or Step 5 Preview?
Step 5 Preview, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.5-27B vs Step 5 Preview comparison based on?
36 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 21, 2026. Qwen3.5-27B's coding index rests on 1 independent benchmark and Step 5 Preview's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.