Noometry

Model comparison

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B vs Step 3.5 Flash

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (42.0 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Last verified . 18 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B Alibaba (Qwen)

42.0

Rank #123 Confirmed

Step 3.5 Flash StepFun

42.3

Rank #116 Confirmed

Summary

  • They share 18 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B scores higher in 2 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 6 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
  • The widest gap is in coding, where Step 3.5 Flash leads 42.4 to 33.8.
  • The biggest single-benchmark swing is MathArena Final-Answer Competitions: 56% for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and 66.8% for Step 3.5 Flash.
  • Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.25 / $2 for Qwen3.5 35B-A3B.
  • Qwen3.5 35B-A3B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 256K.

Side by side

Qwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
ProviderAlibaba (Qwen)StepFun
Noometry Index42.042.3
Released2026-02-012026-01-29
WeightsOpenOpen
Context window262K256K
Max output66K256K
Input $ / M tokens$0.25$0.10
Output $ / M tokens$2$0.30
Results tracked2819

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Category by category

Coding Step 3.5 Flash leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 33.8 (#251), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.4 (#105)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Coding14101436
LMArena WebDev1254—
SciCode29.3%—

Reasoning Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 24.6 (#161), Step 3.5 Flash: 22.2 (#202)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Hard Prompts14001411
NYT Connections (extended)—28.4%
CritPt0.6%—
Chess Puzzles10%—
DTBench80%—
LMCA29.5%—
Epoch Capabilities Index142.52—

Math Step 3.5 Flash leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 39.9 (#97), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.6 (#84)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
MathArena Final-Answer Competitions56%66.8%
LMArena Math14041408
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-202570%—

Knowledge Qwen3.5 35B-A3B leads

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 47.8 (#79), Step 3.5 Flash: 39.6 (#132)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Expert14081421
GPQA Diamond83.5%—
Vectara Hallucination Rate10.5%—

Multilingual Too close to call

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 50.0 (#127), Step 3.5 Flash: 50.5 (#119)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Non-English13781385
LMArena Chinese14571447
LMArena French14121421
LMArena German13671405
LMArena Japanese13251354
LMArena Korean13561352
LMArena Russian13761385
LMArena Spanish13921419

Instruction Following Too close to call

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 72.8 (#128), Step 3.5 Flash: 73.1 (#124)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Instruction Following13791385

Long Context Too close to call

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 42.4 (#127), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#117)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Longer Query13891402

Writing & Preference Too close to call

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B: 57.9 (#124), Step 3.5 Flash: 58.8 (#113)

BenchmarkQwen3.5 35B-A3BStep 3.5 Flash
LMArena Text13951403
LMArena Creative Writing13461357
LMArena Multi-Turn13901405

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.5 35B-A3B better than Step 3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (42.0 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 35B-A3B or Step 3.5 Flash?

Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper. It lists at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 35B-A3B lists at $0.25 and $2.

Is Qwen3.5 35B-A3B or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?

Step 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 33.8 in the Noometry coding category.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 35B-A3B does, with 262K tokens against 256K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 35B-A3B and Step 3.5 Flash share?

18 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 35B-A3B has 28 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.

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