Qwen3.5-Flash vs Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads Qwen3.5-Flash on coding, 44.1 to 41.1 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Qwen3.5-Flash costs 7.5x less per output token ($0.26 vs $1.95 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 55 benchmarks have a result for both.
Qwen3.5-Flash or Qwen3.6 Plus: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 41.1 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
Pick Qwen3.5-Flash for output tokens 7.5x cheaper ($0.26 vs $1.95 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.40 against $1.19).
- Shared results
- 55
- Qwen3.5-Flash only
- 0
- Qwen3.6 Plus only
- 28
- Like-for-like categories
- 6 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
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus scores 44.1 against 41.1.
2 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a AA Intelligence Index result, 27.0.
Directional only
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 87.4% against 82.8%.
Same board, both measured
Math
AIME
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 94.6% against 92.5%.
Same board, both measured
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
Qwen3.6 Plus
Qwen3.6 Plus leads, 87.7% against 84.1%.
Same board, both measured
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Qwen3.6 Plus has a Design Arena: websites result, 1243.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 1M tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash $0.0002, Qwen3.6 Plus $0.0013 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Qwen3.5-Flash
Qwen3.5-Flash $0.40, Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen3.5-Flash 41.1 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.6 Plus 44.1 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Coding, 17.4 points apart on average over 8 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- LMArena WebDev: React: Qwen3.5-Flash 1229 against Qwen3.6 Plus 1454, 37.4 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.5-Flash $0.26 against Qwen3.6 Plus $1.95 per million output tokens, 7.5x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 1M tokens.
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-Flash | Bars | Qwen3.6 Plus | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 0 | 8 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 1 | ||
| Reasoning | 1 | 6 | 1 tie | |
| Math | 0 | 5 | ||
| Knowledge | 3 | 9 | ||
| General | 1 | 20 | ||
| All shared boards | 5 | 49 | 1 tie |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index08
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1244 | 1461 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| AA Coding Index | Not measured | 54.5 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | 83.3% | 86.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 64.4% | 73.4% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| 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 |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 43.9% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| ALE-Bench | 265.9 | 670.1 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: coding | 1412 | 1467 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | 1416 | 1462 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena WebDev: React | 1229 | 1454 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | 1291 | 1463 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena WebDev: from an image | Not measured | 1472 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 28 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index01
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | Not measured | 27.0 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 143.5 | 147.3 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index6 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-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 | Not measured | 97.7% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Vending-Bench 2 | Not measured | $5,115 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index16
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 82.8% | 87.4% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MMMU Pro (Vals AI) | 81.9% | 84.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 88.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | Not measured | 27.8% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 82.3% | 88.4% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Chess puzzles | 14.0% | 14.0% | Tie |
| Mystery game puzzles | 20.0% | 12.0% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | 1403 | 1448 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: expert | 1407 | 1454 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | 1409 | 1455 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 13 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index05
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIME | 92.5% | 94.6% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| OTIS Mock AIME | 84.4% | 93.3% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 18.2% | 38.2% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: math | 1407 | 1449 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | 1413 | 1448 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index39
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | 84.1% | 87.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | 84.3% | 84.2% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 56.0% | 51.5% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 63.6% | 61.9% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 72.2% | 74.7% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 67.4% | 68.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | 33.0% | 36.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| SimpleQA Verified | 20.3% | 44.1% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: science | 1415 | 1439 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | 1407 | 1442 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | 1398 | 1437 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | 1394 | 1430 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 8 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1243 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1230 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1211 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1228 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1202 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1235 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1160 | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1113 | 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 index120
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 42.5% | 44.9% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | 70.6% | 77.0% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Vals Multimodal Index | Not measured | 51.5% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| IFBench | Not measured | 75.2% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | Not measured | 78.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| DTBench | 82.9% | 81.9% | Qwen3.5-Flash |
| LMCA | 29.1% | 33.1% | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| CL-bench | Not measured | 20.3% | Only Qwen3.6 Plus measured |
| LMArena Text | 1397 | 1436 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | 1374 | 1424 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | 1343 | 1404 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: English | 1404 | 1445 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: non-English | 1385 | 1424 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | 1445 | 1477 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: German | 1390 | 1451 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | 1369 | 1390 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Korean | 1344 | 1379 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: French | 1413 | 1455 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | 1400 | 1432 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Russian | 1380 | 1434 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: Polish | 1376 | 1433 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | 1393 | 1438 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | 1392 | 1439 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | 1369 | 1418 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | 1347 | 1402 | Qwen3.6 Plus |
| Neither model has a result on the other 23 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-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
Qwen3.5-Flash 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-Flash | Qwen3.6 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Qwen |
| Weights | No public weights listed | No public weights listed |
| Released | February 25, 2026 | April 2, 2026 |
| Context window | 1M | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.065 | $0.325 |
| Output $/Mtok | $0.26 | $1.95 |
| Coding index | 41.1 | 44.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $0.40 | $1.19 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.5-Flash better than Qwen3.6 Plus for coding?
Pick Qwen3.6 Plus for coding: it scores 44.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 41.1 for Qwen3.5-Flash. Pick Qwen3.5-Flash for output tokens 7.5x cheaper ($0.26 vs $1.95 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($0.40 against $1.19).
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-Flash or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Qwen3.5-Flash costs $0.065 per million input tokens and $0.26 per million output tokens; Qwen3.6 Plus costs $0.325 and $1.95. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Qwen3.5-Flash costs $0.40 and Qwen3.6 Plus $1.19.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-Flash or Qwen3.6 Plus?
Neither: both take 1M tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.5-Flash vs Qwen3.6 Plus comparison based on?
55 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Qwen3.5-Flash's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.6 Plus's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.