Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3.7 Max
Qwen3.7 Max leads Qwen3.6 27B on coding, 54.1 to 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index, and Qwen3.6 27B costs 1.6x less per output token ($2.70 vs $4.425 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 21 benchmarks have a result for both.
Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3.7 Max: which to pick
Pick Qwen3.7 Max for coding: it scores 54.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 36.8 for Qwen3.6 27B.
Pick Qwen3.6 27B for output tokens 1.6x cheaper ($2.70 vs $4.425 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($1.30 against $4.69).
- Shared results
- 21
- Qwen3.6 27B only
- 3
- Qwen3.7 Max only
- 38
- 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
Qwen3.7 Max
Qwen3.7 Max scores 54.1 against 36.8.
2 and 3 benchmarks behind the scores
Intelligence
AA Intelligence Index
Qwen3.7 Max
Qwen3.7 Max leads, 29.5 against 21.4.
Same board, both measured
Agentic work
AA Agentic Index
Qwen3.7 Max
Qwen3.7 Max leads, 22.5 against 18.5.
Same board, both measured
Reasoning
GPQA Diamond
No call
Only Qwen3.7 Max has a GPQA Diamond result, 90.2%.
Directional only
Knowledge
MMLU Pro
No call
Only Qwen3.7 Max has a MMLU Pro result, 89.3%.
Directional only
Web design
Design Arena: websites
No call
Only Qwen3.7 Max has a Design Arena: websites result, 1274.
Directional only
Long documents
Listed context window
Qwen3.7 Max
Qwen3.7 Max takes 1M tokens against 262K.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3.6 27B
Qwen3.6 27B $0.0018, Qwen3.7 Max $0.0037 per turn.
List prices
Cost per solved task
One SWE-bench Verified task, solved
Qwen3.6 27B
Qwen3.6 27B $1.30, Qwen3.7 Max $4.69.
Published attempt cost and pass rate
At a glance
- Coding index
- Qwen3.6 27B 36.8 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3.7 Max 54.1 from 3 benchmarks.
- Widest category
- Math, 17.0 points apart on average over 2 shared benchmarks.
- Widest single gap
- Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI): Qwen3.6 27B 11.9% against Qwen3.7 Max 47.7%, 35.7 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.6 27B $2.70 against Qwen3.7 Max $4.425 per million output tokens, 1.6x apart.
- Context window
- Qwen3.6 27B takes 262K tokens, Qwen3.7 Max 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 | Qwen3.6 27B | Bars | Qwen3.7 Max | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 4 | ||
| Intelligence | 0 | 2 | ||
| Agentic work | 0 | 2 | ||
| Reasoning | 0 | 4 | ||
| Math | 0 | 2 | ||
| Knowledge | 0 | 2 | ||
| General | 0 | 4 | ||
| All shared boards | 1 | 20 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index14
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | Not measured | 1515 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| AA Coding Index | 53.7 | 66.0 | Qwen3.7 Max |
| LiveCodeBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 87.1% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | 68.8% | Qwen3.6 27B |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 11.9% | 47.7% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Code migration (Vals AI) | Not measured | 13.1% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals AI) | Not measured | 61.0% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| SciCode | 42.8% | 49.5% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.8% | 50.8% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| ALE-Bench | Not measured | 1189.4 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| LMArena WebDev: React | Not measured | 1514 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| LMArena WebDev: HTML | Not measured | 1512 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 21.4 | 29.5 | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.2 | 154.0 | Qwen3.7 Max |
Agentic workLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 18.5 | 22.5 | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Design Arena: agents building web apps | Not measured | 1208 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: agents building full-stack apps | Not measured | 1191 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: agents building mobile apps | Not measured | 1155 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Android apps | Not measured | 1159 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: agents building Godot games | Not measured | 1187 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: agents building games | Not measured | 1161 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: HTML slides | Not measured | 1108 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: PowerPoint slides | Not measured | 1171 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Finance Agent (Vals AI) | Not measured | 47.8% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Tax Agent Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 15.8% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Legal Research Bench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 25.5% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Excel Modeling Benchmark (Vals AI) | Not measured | 57.0% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 94.2% | 94.7% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Neither model has a result on the other 27 boards here | |||
ReasoningLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | Not measured | 90.2% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.2% | 92.3% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.1% | 40.5% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 85.9% | 90.9% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| SimpleBench | Not measured | 70.4% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Chess puzzles | Not measured | 26.0% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 7.0% | 32.0% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| EBR-bench | Not measured | 9.5% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 14 boards here | |||
MathLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 91.1% | 95.6% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 35.1% | 64.6% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| FrontierMath, tier 4 | Not measured | 34.1% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| ProofBench | Not measured | 26.0% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 9 boards here | |||
KnowledgeLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index02
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLU Pro | Not measured | 89.3% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| LegalBench (Vals AI) | Not measured | 84.9% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.3% | 63.7% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.3% | 75.3% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| MedCode (Vals AI) | Not measured | 38.8% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| SimpleQA Verified | Not measured | 55.8% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
Web designDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design Arena: websites | Not measured | 1274 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: UI components | Not measured | 1267 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: game dev | Not measured | 1264 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: data viz | Not measured | 1275 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: 3D | Not measured | 1265 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: all code categories | Not measured | 1275 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: SVG | Not measured | 1216 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Design Arena: ASCII art | Not measured | 1211 | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 1 board here | |||
GeneralLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index04
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 45.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| MedScribe (Vals AI) | Not measured | 79.4% | Only Qwen3.7 Max measured |
| IFBench | 67.6% | 80.5% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 77.3% | 79.0% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| DTBench | 78.1% | 92.3% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| LMCA | 34.5% | 44.0% | Qwen3.7 Max |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
Image generationNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max | 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 27B costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3.6 27B costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
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.
| Specification | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3.7 Max |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | No public weights listed |
| Released | April 27, 2026 | May 21, 2026 |
| Context window | 262K | 1M |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.45 | $1.475 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.70 | $4.425 |
| Coding index | 36.8 | 54.1 |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 3 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.30 | $4.69 |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.6 27B better than Qwen3.7 Max for coding?
Pick Qwen3.7 Max for coding: it scores 54.1 on the Vibe Coding Index against 36.8 for Qwen3.6 27B. Pick Qwen3.6 27B for output tokens 1.6x cheaper ($2.70 vs $4.425 per million) and a lower cost per solved task ($1.30 against $4.69).
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3.7 Max?
Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.45 per million input tokens and $2.70 per million output tokens; Qwen3.7 Max costs $1.475 and $4.425. Per solved SWE-bench Verified task, Qwen3.6 27B costs $1.30 and Qwen3.7 Max $4.69.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3.7 Max?
Qwen3.7 Max, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3.7 Max comparison based on?
21 benchmarks have a result for both models as of October 22, 2026. Qwen3.6 27B's coding index rests on 2 independent benchmarks and Qwen3.7 Max's on 3. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.