Model comparison

gpt-oss-120b vs Qwen3.5-9B

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.

gpt-oss-120b OpenAI

36.3

Rank #217 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. gpt-oss-120b scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-9B in 4 categories; 5 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where gpt-oss-120b leads 52.5 to 34.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 88.9% for gpt-oss-120b and 61.7% for Qwen3.5-9B.
  • gpt-oss-120b is cheaper at $0.037 / $0.17 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

gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3.5-9B specifications
gpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
ProviderOpenAIAlibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index36.333.8
Released2025-08-052026-02-23
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K262K
Max output41K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.037$0.10
Output $ / M tokens$0.17$0.15
Results tracked4810

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5-9B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 33.5 (#256), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

Coding benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
SciCode36%27.5%
SWE-bench Verified (bash only)26%—
Aider Polyglot41.8%—
WeirdML48.2%—
LMArena Coding1380—
ALE-Bench575.62—
AlgoTune1.41—

Agentic & Tool Use Qwen3.5-9B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 12.2 (#153), Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench18.7%9.2%
APEX-Agents4.4%—
METR Time Horizons56.6%—
Vending-Bench 2-21.53—

Reasoning Qwen3.5-9B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 20.0 (#245), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
CritPt1.1%0.3%
Chess Puzzles20%12%
DTBench76.3%71.2%
LMCA22.1%24.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index139.93139.46
SimpleBench22.1%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark58.6%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1364—
Mystery Game Puzzles2%—
Surface Evolver Bench25%—

Math gpt-oss-120b leads

gpt-oss-120b: 52.5 (#50), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

Math benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202588.9%61.7%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—48.5%
Omni-MATH68.8%—
LMArena Math1389—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

gpt-oss-120b: 42.4 (#96), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond75.8%79%
MMLU-Pro79.5%—
Confabulations15.7%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate14.2%—
GPQA (HELM)68.4%—
LMArena Expert1356—

Multilingual Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 48.0 (#147), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English1351—
LMArena Chinese1385—
LMArena French1369—
LMArena German1353—
LMArena Japanese1331—
LMArena Korean1282—
LMArena Russian1343—
LMArena Spanish1389—

Instruction Following Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 69.3 (#173), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
IFEval83.6%—
LMArena Instruction Following1318—

Long Context Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 31.4 (#278), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
Fiction.LiveBench44.4%—
LMArena Longer Query1319—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

gpt-oss-120b: 46.5 (#217), Qwen3.5-9B: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmarkgpt-oss-120bQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text1365—
LMArena Creative Writing1275—
Short-Story Creative Writing77.1%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing961—
WildBench84.5%—
LMArena Multi-Turn1340—

Frequently asked questions

Is gpt-oss-120b better than Qwen3.5-9B?

gpt-oss-120b is the stronger model overall, scoring 36.3 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3.5-9B?

gpt-oss-120b is cheaper. It lists at $0.037 per million input tokens and $0.17 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-9B lists at $0.10 and $0.15.

Is gpt-oss-120b or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Qwen3.5-9B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 35.9 versus 33.5 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do gpt-oss-120b and Qwen3.5-9B share?

9 benchmarks have published results for both models. gpt-oss-120b has 48 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.

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