Model comparison

DeepSeek V4 Flash vs Qwen3.5-9B

DeepSeek V4 Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 53.6 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when DeepSeek V4 Flash's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 9 shared benchmarks.

DeepSeek V4 Flash

DeepSeek

53.6

Rank #35 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. DeepSeek V4 Flash scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 0 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in reasoning, where DeepSeek V4 Flash leads 53.7 to 23.1.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 94.4% for DeepSeek V4 Flash and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.15 / $0.60 for DeepSeek V4 Flash.
DeepSeek V4 Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.

Side by side

DeepSeek V4 Flash and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	DeepSeek	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	53.6	33.8
Released	2026-04-24	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	1M	262K
Max output	393K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.15	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$0.60	$0.15
Results tracked	41	10

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Category by category

Coding DeepSeek V4 Flash leads

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 47.9 (#59), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	49.9%	27.5%
FrontierCode	18.8%	—
LMArena WebDev	1582	—
WeirdML	63%	—
LMArena Coding	1457	—
ALE-Bench	1,306	—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

DeepSeek V4 Flash: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%

Reasoning DeepSeek V4 Flash leads

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 53.7 (#30), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
CritPt	16.6%	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	33%	12%
DTBench	90.9%	71.2%
LMCA	41.7%	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	154.49	139.46
ARC-AGI-2	61.4%	—
SimpleBench	61.1%	—
Kagi LLM Benchmark	52.2%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	89.6%	—
ARC-AGI-1	89%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1444	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	34%	—

Math DeepSeek V4 Flash leads

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 60.3 (#37), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	76.5%	48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	94.4%	61.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	57.5%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	24.4%	—
ProofBench	56%	—
LMArena Math	1427	—

Knowledge DeepSeek V4 Flash leads

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 55.4 (#48), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	91%	79%
SimpleQA Verified	33.6%	—
LMArena Expert	1441	—

Multilingual Not comparable

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 53.0 (#72), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1420	—
LMArena Chinese	1468	—
LMArena French	1439	—
LMArena German	1418	—
LMArena Japanese	1406	—
LMArena Korean	1384	—
LMArena Russian	1428	—
LMArena Spanish	1436	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 74.9 (#81), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1421	—

Long Context Not comparable

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 43.8 (#85), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1434	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

DeepSeek V4 Flash: 63.8 (#61), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	DeepSeek V4 Flash	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1432	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1403	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1559	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1449	—

Frequently asked questions

Is DeepSeek V4 Flash better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek V4 Flash or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; DeepSeek V4 Flash lists at $0.15 and $0.60.

Is DeepSeek V4 Flash or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

DeepSeek V4 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 47.9 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek V4 Flash does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do DeepSeek V4 Flash and Qwen3.5-9B share?

9 benchmarks have published results for both models. DeepSeek V4 Flash has 41 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.