Qwen3.5-9B vs Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-9B costs 1.7x less per output token than Qwen3.5-Flash ($0.15 vs $0.26 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 5 benchmarks have a result for both.
Qwen3.5-9B or Qwen3.5-Flash: which to pick
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, 41.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5-9B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen3.5-9B for output tokens 1.7x cheaper ($0.15 vs $0.26 per million).
- Shared results
- 5
- Qwen3.5-9B only
- 11
- Qwen3.5-Flash only
- 50
- Like-for-like categories
- 4 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 Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, so no call is made.
One side not measured
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Qwen3.5-9B has a AA Intelligence Index result, 13.3.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a GPQA Diamond result, 82.8%.
Directional only
Math
AIME
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a AIME result, 92.5%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a MMLU Pro result, 84.1%.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5-9B
Qwen3.5-9B $0.0002, Qwen3.5-Flash $0.0002 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
No call
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has the number, $0.40.
Directional only
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen3.5-9B not benchmarked, Qwen3.5-Flash 41.1 from 2 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 22.8 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- OTIS Mock AIME: Qwen3.5-9B 61.7% against Qwen3.5-Flash 84.4%, 22.8 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.5-9B $0.15 against Qwen3.5-Flash $0.26 per million output tokens, 1.7x apart.
- Context window
- Qwen3.5-9B takes 262K tokens, Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Qwen3.5-9B | Bars | Qwen3.5-Flash | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 1 | ||
| Math | 0 | 1 | ||
| General | 0 | 2 | ||
| All shared boards | 0 | 5 |
CodingDirectional onlySix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1244 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| AA Coding Index | 23.5 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 83.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | Not measured | 64.4% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| SciCode | 29.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 24.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Terminal-Bench | 9.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 265.9 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1412 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1416 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1229 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1291 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 31 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 13.3 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 139.3 | 143.5 | Qwen3.5-Flash |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index1 board, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 86.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 41 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 82.8% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | Not measured | 81.9% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 80.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 14.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 79.0% | 82.3% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 14.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | Not measured | 20.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1403 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1407 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1409 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | Not measured | 92.5% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 61.7% | 84.4% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | Not measured | 18.2% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1407 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1413 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MathArena | 13.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index12 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 84.1% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | Not measured | 56.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | Not measured | 63.6% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | Not measured | 72.2% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | Not measured | 67.4% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 33.0% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 20.3% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1415 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1407 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1398 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1394 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | Not measured | 42.5% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 70.6% | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| IFBench | 66.7% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 70.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.5-9B measured |
| DTBench | 71.2% | 82.9% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMCA | 24.5% | 29.1% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1397 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1374 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1343 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1404 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1385 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1445 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1369 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1344 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1413 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1400 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1380 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1376 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1393 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1392 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1369 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1347 | Only Qwen3.5-Flash measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 25 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash | 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
Qwen3.5-9B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash 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 | Qwen3.5-9B | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | March 10, 2026 | February 25, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.10 | $0.065 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.15 | $0.26 |
| Coding index | Not benchmarked | 41.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 0 | 2 |
| Cost per solved task | Not computable | $0.40 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.5-9B better than Qwen3.5-Flash for coding?
Only Qwen3.5-Flash has a coding score, 41.1 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3.5-9B has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen3.5-9B for output tokens 1.7x cheaper ($0.15 vs $0.26 per million).
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-9B or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Qwen3.5-9B costs $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-Flash costs $0.065 and $0.26. Cost per solved task is known for Qwen3.5-Flash only.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-9B or Qwen3.5-Flash?
Qwen3.5-Flash, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.5-9B vs Qwen3.5-Flash comparison based on?
5 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Qwen3.5-9B's coding index rests on 0 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.5-Flash's on 2. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.