Model comparison

GPT-4.1 mini vs Qwen3.6 35B-A3B

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 11 shared benchmarks.

GPT-4.1 mini OpenAI

33.6

Rank #240 Confirmed

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

37.6

Rank #201 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 11 benchmarks with published results for both. GPT-4.1 mini scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads 28.0 to 10.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 44.7% for GPT-4.1 mini and 86.7% for Qwen3.6 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $1.49 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $1.60 for GPT-4.1 mini.
  • GPT-4.1 mini accepts more context: 1.05M tokens versus 262K.
  • Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

GPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B specifications
GPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index33.637.6
Released2025-04-142026-04-01
WeightsProprietaryOpen
Context window1.05M262K
Max output33K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.40$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$1.60$1.49
Results tracked4714

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 30.6 (#293), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 37.2 (#196)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
SciCode40.4%35.8%
WeirdML37.6%34.5%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)23.9%—
Aider Polyglot32.4%—
BigCodeBench Instruct48.9%—
LMArena Coding1367—
CadEval16%—

Agentic & Tool Use GPT-4.1 mini leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 33.3 (#55), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 22.1 (#134)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
Terminal-Bench—23%
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard50.5%—

Reasoning Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 10.8 (#340), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 28.0 (#109)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
CritPt0%0.3%
Chess Puzzles7%26%
Mystery Game Puzzles7%22%
DTBench68.8%73.9%
LMCA21.1%29.7%
Epoch Capabilities Index135.01143.93
ARC-AGI-20%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark48.6%—
NYT Connections (extended)—41.6%
ARC-AGI-13.5%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1349—
Surface Evolver Bench—44.4%

Math Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 24.1 (#270), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 38.9 (#121)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)6.7%20.4%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202544.7%86.7%
Omni-MATH49.1%—
LMArena Math1343—
MATH Level 587.3%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)4.5%—

Knowledge Qwen3.6 35B-A3B leads

GPT-4.1 mini: 34.7 (#194), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: 51.3 (#68)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond65.8%84.8%
SimpleQA Verified12.7%—
MMLU-Pro78.3%—
GPQA (HELM)61.4%—
LMArena Expert1338—

Multimodal Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 35.8 (#82), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Multimodal benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Vision1181—

Multilingual Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 45.7 (#166), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English1318—
LMArena Chinese1329—
LMArena French1358—
LMArena German1351—
LMArena Japanese1290—
LMArena Korean1298—
LMArena Russian1324—
LMArena Spanish1319—

Instruction Following Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 73.7 (#118), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
IFEval90.4%—
LMArena Instruction Following1333—

Long Context Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 31.8 (#275), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—
LMArena Longer Query1344—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

GPT-4.1 mini: 48.6 (#199), Qwen3.6 35B-A3B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkGPT-4.1 miniQwen3.6 35B-A3B
LMArena Text1340—
LMArena Creative Writing1300—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1147—
WildBench83.8%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1354—

Frequently asked questions

Is GPT-4.1 mini better than Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.6 to 33.6 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $1.49 per million output tokens; GPT-4.1 mini lists at $0.40 and $1.60.

Is GPT-4.1 mini or Qwen3.6 35B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3.6 35B-A3B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 37.2 versus 30.6 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

GPT-4.1 mini does, with 1.05M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do GPT-4.1 mini and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B share?

11 benchmarks have published results for both models. GPT-4.1 mini has 47 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.6 35B-A3B has 14.

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