Model comparison

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite vs Qwen3.5-9B

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.5 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 7.6× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 8 shared benchmarks.

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite

Google

41.5

Rank #133 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 8 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 1 category; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in agentic & tool use, where Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads 25.7 to 14.5.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is SciCode: 41.3% for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and 27.5% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.50 for Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite.
Gemini 3.5 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 3.5 Flash Lite and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	Google	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	41.5	33.8
Released	2026-07-21	2026-02-23
Weights	Proprietary	Open
Context window	1.05M	262K
Max output	66K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.30	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$2.50	$0.15
Results tracked	39	10

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Category by category

Coding Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 42.4 (#104), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	41.3%	27.5%
LMArena WebDev	1440	—
WeirdML	39%	—
LMArena Coding	1453	—
ALE-Bench	765.27	—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.7 (#107), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%
APEX-Agents	29.3%	—
GDP.pdf	10%	—

Reasoning Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 27.8 (#114), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
CritPt	0%	0.3%
Chess Puzzles	22%	12%
DTBench	83.5%	71.2%
LMCA	37.6%	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	145.13	139.46
ARC-AGI-2	10.3%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	60.4%	—
ARC-AGI-1	53.5%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1441	—
Mystery Game Puzzles	19%	—

Math Qwen3.5-9B leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 25.9 (#264), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	71.1%	61.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	26%	—
FrontierMath Tier 4	0%	—
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
ProofBench	13%	—
LMArena Math	1433	—

Knowledge Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite leads

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 50.1 (#72), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	83.3%	79%
LMArena Expert	1435	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 41.1 (#40), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Vision	1268	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 53.5 (#63), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1427	—
LMArena Chinese	1469	—
LMArena French	1451	—
LMArena German	1454	—
LMArena Japanese	1427	—
LMArena Korean	1407	—
LMArena Russian	1443	—
LMArena Spanish	1442	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 74.8 (#85), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1420	—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 43.9 (#84), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1435	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite: 64.2 (#57), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1435	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1420	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1559	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1445	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, Gemini 3.5 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 3.5 Flash Lite lists at $0.30 and $2.50.

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite and Qwen3.5-9B share?

8 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemini 3.5 Flash Lite has 39 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.