Model comparison
Qwen Plus vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen Plus scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 27.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 17.8% for Qwen Plus and 88.9% for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
- Qwen Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $1.20 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
- Qwen Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 36.7 | 45.7 |
| Released | 2024-01-25 | 2026-02-01 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 33K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.40 | $0.60 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $1.20 | $3.60 |
| Results tracked | 20 | 36 |
Sponsored placements are available on pages like this one. Advertise on Noometry
Category by category
Coding Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 38.3 (#163), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 41.7 (#108)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1328 | 1464 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1400 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen Plus: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.2 (#51)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 24.9% |
| τ²-bench Airline | — | 81.5% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 9.8% |
| τ²-bench Retail | — | 84.4% |
| τ²-bench Telecom | — | 97.8% |
Reasoning Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 27.6 (#101), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.6 (#62)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 63.3% | 73.7% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1317 | 1448 |
| DTBench | 81.1% | 87.5% |
| LMCA | 24% | 37.9% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 58.9% |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 13% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 65.1% |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 18% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.64 |
Math Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 22.0 (#266), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.9 (#64)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 17.8% | 88.9% |
| LMArena Math | 1326 | 1455 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 31.2% |
| MATH Level 5 | 65.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 1.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 27.4 (#245), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#53)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 48.1% | 86.4% |
| LMArena Expert | 1328 | 1461 |
Multimodal Not comparable
Qwen Plus: —, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.0 (#42)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1262 |
Multilingual Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 45.3 (#170), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 54.0 (#56)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1310 | 1431 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | 1501 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1251 | 1427 |
| LMArena Russian | 1323 | 1429 |
| LMArena French | — | 1461 |
| LMArena German | — | 1447 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1382 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1443 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 69.0 (#176), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.2 (#73)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1303 | 1424 |
Long Context Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 40.3 (#153), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#71)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1325 | 1442 |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads
Qwen Plus: 52.4 (#171), Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.5 (#74)
| Benchmark | Qwen Plus | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1326 | 1438 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1293 | 1401 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1336 | 1447 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1478 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen Plus better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?
Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 36.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen Plus costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.
Which is cheaper, Qwen Plus or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?
Qwen Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.20 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.
Is Qwen Plus or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?
Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 38.3 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen Plus and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen Plus has 20 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.