Model comparison

Qwen3 235B-A22B vs Qwen3.5 35B-A3B

Qwen3 235B-A22B is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 42.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 235B-A22B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 26 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3 235B-A22B Alibaba (Qwen)

43.5

Rank #91 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.0

Rank #123 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 26 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3 235B-A22B scores higher in 6 categories and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B in 2 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Qwen3 235B-A22B leads 44.3 to 33.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 86.7% for Qwen3 235B-A22B and 70% for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is cheaper at $0.25 / $2 per million input/output tokens, against $0.70 / $2.80 for Qwen3 235B-A22B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Qwen3 235B-A22B and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B specifications
Qwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index43.542.0
Released2025-042026-02-01
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window131K262K
Max output16K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.70$0.25
Output $ / M tokens$2.80$2
Results tracked4928

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 44.3 (#75), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251)

Coding benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
SciCode42.4%29.3%
LMArena Coding14451410
Aider Polyglot59.6%—
LMArena WebDev—1254
WeirdML41%—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 33.9 (#51), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard52.1%—
Vending-Bench 2-11.34—

Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 15.7 (#311), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161)

Reasoning benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
CritPt0%0.6%
Chess Puzzles12%10%
LMArena Hard Prompts14331400
DTBench80.3%80%
LMCA29.3%29.5%
Epoch Capabilities Index143.85142.52
ARC-AGI-21.3%—
SimpleBench31%—
Kagi LLM Benchmark69.4%—
ARC-AGI-111%—
Mystery Game Puzzles9%—
ForecastBench59.7—

Math Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 50.4 (#57), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97)

Math benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202586.7%70%
LMArena Math14321404
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions—56%
Omni-MATH71.8%—
MATH Level 568.9%—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)8.5%—
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)0%—

Knowledge Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 49.6 (#73), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79)

Knowledge benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
GPQA Diamond80.1%83.5%
Vectara Hallucination Rate9.3%10.5%
LMArena Expert14631408
SimpleQA Verified40.4%—
MMLU-Pro84.4%—
Confabulations15.6%—
GPQA (HELM)72.7%—

Multilingual Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 52.3 (#89), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127)

Multilingual benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Non-English14091378
LMArena Chinese14811457
LMArena French14451412
LMArena German14331367
LMArena Japanese13991325
LMArena Korean13911356
LMArena Russian14111376
LMArena Spanish14301392

Instruction Following Too close to call

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 72.6 (#136), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128)

Instruction Following benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Instruction Following14081379
IFEval83.5%—

Long Context Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 46.1 (#26), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127)

Long Context benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Longer Query14261389
Fiction.LiveBench75%—

Writing & Preference Qwen3 235B-A22B leads

Qwen3 235B-A22B: 59.6 (#108), Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124)

Writing & Preference benchmarks
BenchmarkQwen3 235B-A22BQwen3.5 35B-A3B
LMArena Text14191395
LMArena Creative Writing13841346
LMArena Multi-Turn14321390
Short-Story Creative Writing83%—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing1366—
WildBench86.6%—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3 235B-A22B better than Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

Qwen3 235B-A22B is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.5 to 42.0 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B costs 1.8× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3 235B-A22B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 235B-A22B or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is cheaper. It lists at $0.25 per million input tokens and $2 per million output tokens; Qwen3 235B-A22B lists at $0.70 and $2.80.

Is Qwen3 235B-A22B or Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better for coding?

Qwen3 235B-A22B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 44.3 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3 235B-A22B and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B share?

26 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3 235B-A22B has 49 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28.

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