Model comparison

Gemma 3 4B vs Qwen3.5-9B

Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.8 to 28.1 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-9B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 6 shared benchmarks.

Gemma 3 4B

Google

28.1

Rank #326 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B

Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 4B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-9B in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 11.8.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 23.2% for Gemma 3 4B and 79% for Qwen3.5-9B.
Gemma 3 4B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.15 for Qwen3.5-9B.
Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Gemma 3 4B and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
Provider	Google	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	28.1	33.8
Released	2025-03-12	2026-02-23
Weights	Open	Open
Context window	131K	262K
Max output	4K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.04	$0.10
Output $ / M tokens	$0.08	$0.15
Results tracked	22	10

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Gemma 3 4B: 35.9 (#215), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
SciCode	—	27.5%
LMArena Coding	1230	—

Agentic & Tool Use Gemma 3 4B leads

Gemma 3 4B: 20.9 (#142), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench	—	9.2%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard	19.6%	—

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

Gemma 3 4B: 13.2 (#335), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
Chess Puzzles	0%	12%
DTBench	50.9%	71.2%
LMCA	2.8%	24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index	116.02	139.46
Kagi LLM Benchmark	25.2%	—
CritPt	—	0.3%
LMArena Hard Prompts	1253	—

Math Qwen3.5-9B leads

Gemma 3 4B: 16.8 (#292), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	7.5%	61.7%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions	—	48.5%
LMArena Math	1239	—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

Gemma 3 4B: 11.8 (#299), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond	23.2%	79%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	6.4%	—
LMArena Expert	1223	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Gemma 3 4B: 42.5 (#194), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English	1273	—
LMArena German	1281	—
LMArena Russian	1294	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Gemma 3 4B: 65.2 (#225), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following	1239	—

Long Context Not comparable

Gemma 3 4B: 38.7 (#194), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query	1273	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Gemma 3 4B: 42.0 (#239), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Gemma 3 4B	Qwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text	1291	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1271	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1068	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1255	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Gemma 3 4B better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Gemma 3 4B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-9B lists at $0.10 and $0.15.

Is Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (35.9 vs 35.9); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 4B and Qwen3.5-9B share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 4B has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.