Model comparison
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite vs Qwen3.5-9B
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.4 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 8 shared benchmarks.
Google
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 2 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads 29.9 to 14.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 80% for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $1.50 for Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite.
- Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5-9B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | |
| Noometry Index | 40.4 | 33.3 |
| Released | 2026-03-03 | 2026-02-23 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1.05M | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.25 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.50 | $0.15 |
| Results tracked | 38 | 10 |
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Category by category
Coding Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 37.5 (#179), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | 41.9% | 27.5% |
| LMArena WebDev | 1256 | — |
| WeirdML | 52.2% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1400 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 797.73 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 29.9 (#72), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| DeepResearch Bench | 37.3% | — |
Reasoning Too close to call
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 22.3 (#181), Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| CritPt | 1.1% | 0.3% |
| Chess Puzzles | 25% | 12% |
| DTBench | 76.8% | 71.2% |
| LMCA | 35% | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 144.45 | 139.45 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 67.2% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 8.2% | — |
| EnigmaEval | 3% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 63.3% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1407 | — |
| ForecastBench | 54.4 | — |
Math Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 39.5 (#82), Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 80% | 61.7% |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 27.7% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| LMArena Math | 1427 | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 41.7 (#95), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 81.8% | 79% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | 8.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 8.2% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1397 | — |
Multimodal Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 38.7 (#57), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1240 | — |
Multilingual Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 52.5 (#82), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1410 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1461 | — |
| LMArena French | 1423 | — |
| LMArena German | 1429 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1411 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1393 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1420 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1420 | — |
Instruction Following Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 72.9 (#126), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1376 | — |
Long Context Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 42.5 (#117), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1394 | — |
Writing & Preference Not comparable
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite: 61.0 (#90), Qwen3.5-9B: —
| Benchmark | Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1416 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1401 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1417 | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite better than Qwen3.5-9B?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 40.4 to 33.3 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 5.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite 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; Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite lists at $0.25 and $1.50.
Is Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.5 versus 35.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite and Qwen3.5-9B share?
8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite has 38 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.