Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
Qwen3.6 27B leads Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, 21.4 to 11.2, and Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs 2.3x less per output token ($1.20 vs $2.70 per million). Updated October 22, 2026; 2 benchmarks have a result for both.
Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking: which to pick
Only Qwen3.6 27B has a coding score, 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding.
Pick Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking for output tokens 2.3x cheaper ($1.20 vs $2.70 per million).
- Shared results
- 2
- Qwen3.6 27B only
- 23
- Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking only
- 28
- Like-for-like categories
- 2 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 11.2.
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
Long documents
Listed context window
No call
Both take 262K tokens.
Listed by OpenRouter
Everyday cost
1K input + 500 output tokens
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking
Qwen3.6 27B $0.0018, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking $0.0008 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
- Qwen3.6 27B 36.8 from 2 benchmarks, Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking not benchmarked.
- Widest category
- Coding, 36.3 points apart on average over 1 shared benchmark.
- Widest single gap
- AA Coding Index: Qwen3.6 27B 53.7 against Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking 17.4, 36.3 points apart on a 0 to 100 scale.
- Output price
- Qwen3.6 27B $2.70 against Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking $1.20 per million output tokens, 2.3x apart.
- Context window
- Both take 262K 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 | Qwen3.6 27B | Bars | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Ties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | 1 | 0 | ||
| Intelligence | 1 | 0 | ||
| All shared boards | 2 | 0 |
CodingLike-for-likeSix of these boards feed the Vibe Coding Index10
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Coding Index | 53.7 | 17.4 | Qwen3.6 27B |
| SWE-bench Verified (Vals AI) | 70.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Vibe Code Bench (Vals AI) | 11.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| SciCode | 42.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Terminal-Bench Hard (Artificial Analysis run) | 34.8% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: coding | Not measured | 1392 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: software and IT | Not measured | 1393 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 36 boards here | |||
IntelligenceLike-for-likePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index10
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Intelligence Index | 21.4 | 11.2 | Qwen3.6 27B |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 146.2 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
Agentic workDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index2 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| AA Agentic Index | 18.5 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| τ²-Bench Telecom | 94.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 40 boards here | |||
ReasoningDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index7 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond (Artificial Analysis run) | 84.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Humanity's Last Exam (Artificial Analysis run) | 23.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| GPQA Diamond (Epoch AI run) | 85.9% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Mystery game puzzles | 7.0% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts | Not measured | 1371 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: expert | Not measured | 1376 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: hard prompts in English | Not measured | 1384 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 16 boards here | |||
MathDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index4 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME | 91.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| FrontierMath, tiers 1 to 3 | 35.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: math | Not measured | 1399 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: mathematical work | Not measured | 1390 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 10 boards here | |||
KnowledgeDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index8 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| CaseLaw (Vals AI) | 53.2% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| CorpFin (Vals AI) | 62.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| TaxEval (Vals AI) | 71.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| MortgageTax (Vals AI) | 68.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMArena Text: science | Not measured | 1384 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: medicine and healthcare | Not measured | 1392 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: legal and government | Not measured | 1364 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: business and finance | Not measured | 1360 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| Neither model has a result on the other 12 boards here | |||
Web designNot comparablePublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index0 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Neither model has a result on 9 boards here | |||
GeneralDirectional onlyPublic boards, shown as published, kept out of the index23 boards, none shared
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | Leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAGE (Vals AI) | 45.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| IFBench | 67.6% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| Long context reasoning (AA-LCR) | 77.3% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| DTBench | 78.1% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMCA | 34.5% | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B measured |
| LMArena Text | Not measured | 1368 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: instruction following | Not measured | 1344 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: creative writing | Not measured | 1314 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: English | Not measured | 1392 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: non-English | Not measured | 1342 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Chinese | Not measured | 1407 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: German | Not measured | 1356 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Japanese | Not measured | 1280 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Korean | Not measured | 1310 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: French | Not measured | 1351 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Spanish | Not measured | 1358 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Russian | Not measured | 1337 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: Polish | Not measured | 1345 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: multi-turn | Not measured | 1346 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: longer queries | Not measured | 1353 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: writing and language | Not measured | 1330 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| LMArena Text: entertainment and media | Not measured | 1312 | Only Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking measured |
| EQ-Bench 4 | 1026 | Not measured | Only Qwen3.6 27B 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 | Qwen3.6 27B | Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking | 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 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs less
Repository review
50K input + 3K output tokens
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs less
Agent loop
200K input + 10K output tokens
Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking 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 Next 80B A3B Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Qwen | Qwen |
| Weights | Open weights | Open weights |
| Released | April 27, 2026 | September 11, 2025 |
| Context window | 262K | 262K |
| Input $/Mtok | $0.45 | $0.15 |
| Output $/Mtok | $2.70 | $1.20 |
| Coding index | 36.8 | Not benchmarked |
| Independent measurements behind it | 2 | 0 |
| Cost per solved task | $1.30 | Not computable |
| Source | OpenRouter listing | OpenRouter listing |
Questions
Is Qwen3.6 27B better than Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking for coding?
Only Qwen3.6 27B has a coding score, 36.8 on the Vibe Coding Index; Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking has none, so the two cannot be ranked on coding. Pick Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking for output tokens 2.3x cheaper ($1.20 vs $2.70 per million).
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking?
Qwen3.6 27B costs $0.45 per million input tokens and $2.70 per million output tokens; Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking costs $0.15 and $1.20. Cost per solved task is known for Qwen3.6 27B only.
Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.6 27B or Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking?
Neither: both take 262K tokens.
How many benchmarks is the Qwen3.6 27B vs Qwen3 Next 80B A3B Thinking comparison based on?
2 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 Next 80B A3B Thinking's on 0. Where only one model has a result, the page says so instead of naming a winner.