Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B vs Qwen3 8B

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified . 9 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.0

Rank #123 Confirmed

Qwen3 8B Alibaba (Qwen)

33.7

Rank #238 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 9 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B scores higher in 4 categories and Qwen3 8B in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads 47.8 to 36.1.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 83.5% for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and 56.8% for Qwen3 8B.
  • Qwen3 8B is cheaper at $0.18 / $0.70 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $2 for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

Side by side

Qwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index42.033.7
Released2026-02-012025-04
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K131K
Max output66K8K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$0.18
Output $ / M tokens$2$0.70
Results tracked2811

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Category by category

Coding Too close to call

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251), Qwen3 8B: 34.0 (#248)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
SciCode29.3%22.6%
LMArena WebDev1254—
LMArena Coding1410—

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: —, Qwen3 8B: 30.2 (#78)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard—42.6%

Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161), Qwen3 8B: 16.6 (#303)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
CritPt0.6%0%
Chess Puzzles10%5%
DTBench80%59.7%
LMCA29.5%8.8%
Epoch Capabilities Index142.52136.17
LMArena Hard Prompts1400—

Math Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97), Qwen3 8B: 34.9 (#191)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202570%56.1%
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions56%—
LMArena Math1404—

Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79), Qwen3 8B: 36.1 (#173)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
GPQA Diamond83.5%56.8%
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%4.8%
LMArena Expert1408—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
LMArena Non-English1378—
LMArena Chinese1457—
LMArena French1412—
LMArena German1367—
LMArena Japanese1325—
LMArena Korean1356—
LMArena Russian1376—
LMArena Spanish1392—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
LMArena Instruction Following1379—

Long Context Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127), Qwen3 8B: 37.9 (#210)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
Fiction.LiveBench—62.1%
LMArena Longer Query1389—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124), Qwen3 8B: —

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BQwen3 8B
LMArena Text1395—
LMArena Creative Writing1346—
LMArena Multi-Turn1390—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better than Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.0 to 33.7 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3 8B costs 2.2× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 35B-A3B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 35B-A3B or Qwen3 8B?

Qwen3 8B is cheaper. It lists at $0.18 per million input tokens and $0.70 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $2.

Is Qwen3.5 35B-A3B or Qwen3 8B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (33.8 vs 34.0); test both on your own repository before choosing.

Which has the bigger context window?

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

How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and Qwen3 8B share?

9 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3 8B has 11.

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