Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen3.5 27B vs Qwen3.5-9B

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 3 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3.5 27B Alibaba (Qwen)

41.9

Rank #127 Confirmed

Qwen3.5-9B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.8

Rank #236 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 3 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5 27B scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5-9B in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 38.0.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is DTBench: 82.4% for Qwen3.5 27B and 71.2% for Qwen3.5-9B.
  • Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.15 per million input/output tokens, against $0.30 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 27B.

Side by side

Qwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index41.933.8
Released2026-02-232026-02-23
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K262K
Max output66K66K
Input $ / M tokens$0.30$0.10
Output $ / M tokens$2.40$0.15
Results tracked2810

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Category by category

Coding Qwen3.5 27B leads

Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168), Qwen3.5-9B: 35.9 (#217)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena WebDev1358—
SciCode—27.5%
WeirdML39.5%—
LMArena Coding1427—
ALE-Bench349.45—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: —, Qwen3.5-9B: 14.5 (#151)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
Terminal-Bench—9.2%
Vending-Bench 2201.98—

Reasoning Qwen3.5 27B leads

Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117), Qwen3.5-9B: 23.1 (#182)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
DTBench82.4%71.2%
LMCA34%24.5%
NYT Connections (extended)47.9%—
CritPt—0.3%
Chess Puzzles—12%
Thematic Generalization45.5%—
LMArena Hard Prompts1414—
Epoch Capabilities Index—139.46

Math Qwen3.5 27B leads

Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127), Qwen3.5-9B: 34.8 (#192)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions56.7%48.5%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025—61.7%
LMArena Math1429—

Knowledge Qwen3.5-9B leads

Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150), Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#84)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
GPQA Diamond—79%
Vectara Hallucination Rate12.1%—
LMArena Expert1428—

Multimodal Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59), Qwen3.5-9B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Vision1241—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115), Qwen3.5-9B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Non-English1390—
LMArena Chinese1478—
LMArena French1410—
LMArena German1393—
LMArena Japanese1345—
LMArena Korean1358—
LMArena Russian1390—
LMArena Spanish1407—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119), Qwen3.5-9B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Instruction Following1393—

Long Context Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106), Qwen3.5-9B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Longer Query1413—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111), Qwen3.5-9B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 27BQwen3.5-9B
LMArena Text1409—
LMArena Creative Writing1362—
LMArena Multi-Turn1410—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.5 27B better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5 27B is the stronger model overall, scoring 41.9 to 33.8 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5-9B costs 7.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 27B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 27B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.15 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 27B lists at $0.30 and $2.40.

Is Qwen3.5 27B or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 27B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 38.9 versus 35.9 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Both accept 262K tokens.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 27B and Qwen3.5-9B share?

3 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 27B has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.

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