Model comparison

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct vs Qwen3.5-Flash

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 30.1 on the Noometry Index.

Last verified . 4 shared benchmarks.

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct Alibaba (Qwen)

30.1

Rank #297 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-Flash Alibaba (Qwen)

42.5

Rank #112 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 4 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen2.5 32B Instruct scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-Flash in 3 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 37.4 to 16.2.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 7.4% for Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and 84.4% for Qwen3.5-Flash.
  • Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.70 / $2.80 for Qwen2.5 32B Instruct.
  • Qwen3.5-Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
  • Qwen2.5 32B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash specifications
Qwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index30.142.5
Released2024-092026-02-23
WeightsOpenProprietary
Context window131K1M
Max output8K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.70$0.10
Output $ / M tokens$2.80$0.40
Results tracked732

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Category by category

Coding Qwen2.5 32B Instruct leads

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: 38.7 (#169), Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena WebDev—1244
BigCodeBench Instruct45%—
LMArena Coding—1412
BigCodeBench Complete52.3%—
ALE-Bench—221.8

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
Vending-Bench 2—462.69

Reasoning Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: 19.2 (#266), Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
Chess Puzzles0%21%
Epoch Capabilities Index128.52143.98
LMArena Hard Prompts—1403
Mystery Game Puzzles—20%
DTBench—82.9%
LMCA—29.1%

Math Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: 16.2 (#296), Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-20257.4%84.4%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)—18.2%
LMArena Math—1407
MATH Level 556.1%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)—6.2%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)—0%

Knowledge Qwen3.5-Flash leads

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: 24.9 (#266), Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
GPQA Diamond46.1%82.3%
SimpleQA Verified—20.3%
Vectara Hallucination Rate—10.5%
LMArena Expert—1407

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Non-English—1385
LMArena Chinese—1446
LMArena French—1412
LMArena German—1390
LMArena Japanese—1368
LMArena Korean—1344
LMArena Russian—1379
LMArena Spanish—1400

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Instruction Following—1374

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Longer Query—1392

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen2.5 32B InstructQwen3.5-Flash
LMArena Text—1397
LMArena Creative Writing—1343
LMArena Multi-Turn—1393

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen2.5 32B Instruct better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 30.1 on the Noometry Index.

Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.40 per million output tokens; Qwen2.5 32B Instruct lists at $0.70 and $2.80.

Is Qwen2.5 32B Instruct or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

Qwen2.5 32B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.7 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen2.5 32B Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

4 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen2.5 32B Instruct has 7 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.

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