Model comparison

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B vs Qwen3.5 Plus

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 46.0 to 42.9 on the Noometry Index. Qwen3.5 Plus costs 1.5× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

Last verified October 10, 2026. 7 shared benchmarks.

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Alibaba (Qwen)

46.0

Rank #67 Confirmed

Qwen3.5 Plus

Alibaba (Qwen)

42.9

Rank #106 Confirmed

Summary

They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher in 3 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 1 category; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 46.0.
The biggest single-benchmark swing is Chess Puzzles: 13% for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and 22% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 / $2.40 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

Side by side

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Qwen3.5 Plus specifications
	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
Provider	Alibaba (Qwen)	Alibaba (Qwen)
Noometry Index	46.0	42.9
Released	2026-02-01	2026-02-16
Weights	Open	Proprietary
Context window	262K	1M
Max output	66K	66K
Input $ / M tokens	$0.60	$0.40
Output $ / M tokens	$3.60	$2.40
Results tracked	36	15

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Category by category

Coding Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 42.0 (#114), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Coding benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena WebDev	1400	—
LMArena Coding	1465	—
ALE-Bench	—	621.92

Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.3 (#53), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Agentic & Tool Use benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
APEX-Agents	24.9%	—
τ²-bench Airline	81.5%	—
τ²-bench Banking	9.8%	—
τ²-bench Retail	84.4%	—
τ²-bench Telecom	97.8%	—
Vending-Bench 2	—	0.54

Reasoning Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 34.5 (#70), Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.8 (#74)

Reasoning benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
Chess Puzzles	13%	22%
Mystery Game Puzzles	18%	17%
DTBench	87.5%	80.5%
LMCA	37.9%	36.4%
Epoch Capabilities Index	146.65	146.78
Kagi LLM Benchmark	73.7%	—
NYT Connections (extended)	58.9%	—
Thematic Generalization	65.1%	—
LMArena Hard Prompts	1448	—

Math Qwen3.5 Plus leads

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 46.1 (#73), Qwen3.5 Plus: 49.6 (#61)

Math benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025	88.9%	86.7%
FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3)	31.2%	—
LMArena Math	1454	—
FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set)	—	21%
FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1)	—	2.1%

Knowledge Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#58), Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#83)

Knowledge benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
GPQA Diamond	86.4%	84.8%
SimpleQA Verified	—	25.4%
Vectara Hallucination Rate	—	10.7%
LMArena Expert	1462	—

Multimodal Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.7 (#44), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Multimodal benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Vision	1263	—

Multilingual Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.7 (#59), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Multilingual benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Non-English	1430	—
LMArena Chinese	1500	—
LMArena French	1461	—
LMArena German	1447	—
LMArena Japanese	1426	—
LMArena Korean	1384	—
LMArena Russian	1429	—
LMArena Spanish	1441	—

Instruction Following Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.0 (#77), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Instruction Following benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Instruction Following	1424	—

Long Context Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#74), Qwen3.5 Plus: 43.0 (#113)

Long Context benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
CL-bench	—	19.8%
CL-bench Life	—	12.4%
LMArena Longer Query	1442	—

Writing & Preference Not comparable

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.3 (#79), Qwen3.5 Plus: —

Writing & Preference benchmarks
Benchmark	Qwen3.5 397B-A17B	Qwen3.5 Plus
LMArena Text	1438	—
LMArena Creative Writing	1401	—
EQ-Bench Creative Writing	1478	—
LMArena Multi-Turn	1446	—

Frequently asked questions

Is Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.40 per million input tokens and $2.40 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.

How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5 397B-A17B and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.