Model comparison
Qwen3.5 27B vs Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5 27B scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct in 5 categories; 7 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in long context, where Qwen3.5 27B leads 43.1 to 37.0.
- Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper at $0.30 / $2.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct.
- Qwen3.5 27B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 41.9 | 43.0 |
| Released | 2026-02-23 | 2025-09 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 262K | 131K |
| Max output | 66K | 33K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.30 | $0.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2.40 | $2 |
| Results tracked | 28 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 38.9 (#168), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 42.5 (#98)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1427 | 1440 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1358 | — |
| WeirdML | 39.5% | — |
| ALE-Bench | 349.45 | — |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3.5 27B: —, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 201.98 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 27.5 (#117), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 31.1 (#81)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1414 | 1428 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 66.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 47.9% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 45.5% | — |
| DTBench | 82.4% | — |
| LMCA | 34% | — |
Math Too close to call
Qwen3.5 27B: 38.8 (#127), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 38.8 (#126)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1429 | 1440 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | 56.7% | — |
| Omni-MATH | — | 46.7% |
Knowledge Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 38.0 (#150), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.8 (#106)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 12.1% | 9.3% |
| LMArena Expert | 1428 | 1417 |
| MMLU-Pro | — | 78.6% |
| GPQA (HELM) | — | 63% |
Multimodal Not comparable
Qwen3.5 27B: 39.4 (#59), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: —
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1241 | — |
Multilingual Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 50.8 (#115), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.1 (#93)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1390 | 1407 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1478 | 1460 |
| LMArena French | 1410 | 1413 |
| LMArena German | 1393 | 1417 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1345 | 1395 |
| LMArena Korean | 1358 | 1364 |
| LMArena Russian | 1390 | 1404 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1407 | 1435 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.5 27B leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 73.5 (#119), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 70.8 (#159)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1393 | 1389 |
| IFEval | — | 81% |
Long Context Qwen3.5 27B leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 43.1 (#106), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#223)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1413 | 1403 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | — | 55.6% |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.5 27B leads
Qwen3.5 27B: 59.3 (#111), Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.0 (#121)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.5 27B | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1409 | 1417 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1362 | 1334 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1410 | 1416 |
| WildBench | — | 80.7% |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.5 27B better than Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct is the stronger model overall, scoring 43.0 to 41.9 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 27B or Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct?
Qwen3.5 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.30 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct lists at $0.50 and $2.
Is Qwen3.5 27B or Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.5 versus 38.9 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.5 27B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 27B and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct share?
18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 27B has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25.