Model comparison

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 28.6 on the Noometry Index. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct costs 2.9× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 6 shared benchmarks.

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct

Alibaba (Qwen)

28.6

Rank #314 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 Plus

Alibaba (Qwen)

42.3

Rank #103 Confirmed

Summary

They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 3 categories; 3 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 47.9 to 11.8.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 2.5% for Qwen2.5 7B Instruct and 86.7% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper at $0.17 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct and Qwen3.5 Plus specifications
	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
Provider	Alibaba (Qwen)	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	28.6	42.3
Released	2024-09	2026-02-16
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	131K	1M
Max output	8K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.17	$0.40
Output $ / M tokens	$0.70	$2.40
Results tracked	15	15

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 35.9 (#204), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
BigCodeBench Instruct	37.6%	—
BigCodeBench Complete	46.1%	—
ALE-Bench	—	621.92

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 23.5 (#117), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
BALROG	7.8%	—
Vending-Bench 2	—	0.54

Reasoning Qwen3.5 Plus leads

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 14.3 (#317), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.0 (#67)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
Chess Puzzles	0%	22%
DTBench	47.7%	80.5%
LMCA	6.4%	36.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	118.44	146.79
Mystery Game Puzzles	—	17%

Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 11.8 (#300), Qwen3.5 Plus: 47.9 (#55)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	2.5%	86.7%
Omni-MATH	29.4%	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	21%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	2.1%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 Plus leads

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 17.0 (#281), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#78)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
GPQA Diamond	35.5%	84.8%
SimpleQA Verified	—	25.4%
MMLU-Pro	53.9%	—
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	10.7%
GPQA (HELM)	34.1%	—
MMLU	72.9%	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 63.4 (#226), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
IFEval	74.1%	—

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: —, Qwen3.5 Plus: 42.9 (#109)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
CL-bench	—	19.8%
CL-bench Life	—	12.4%

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct: 48.8 (#194), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen2.5 7B Instruct	Qwen3.5 Plus
WildBench	73.1%	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen2.5 7B Instruct better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

Which is cheaper, Qwen2.5 7B Instruct or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen2.5 7B Instruct is cheaper. It lists at $0.17 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do Qwen2.5 7B Instruct and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen2.5 7B Instruct has 15 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.