Model comparison
Qwen3.6 Plus vs Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.
Last verified . 19 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)Summary
- They share 19 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher in 8 categories and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct in 0 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.6 Plus leads 56.1 to 36.4.
- Qwen3.6 Plus is cheaper at $0.50 / $3 per million input/output tokens, against $1.50 / $7.50 for Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct.
- Qwen3.6 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 262K.
- Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.
Side by side
| Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 47.3 | 37.7 |
| Released | 2026-03-31 | 2025-04 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |
| Context window | 1M | 262K |
| Max output | 66K | 66K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $1.50 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $3 | $7.50 |
| Results tracked | 37 | 25 |
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Category by category
Coding Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 40.6 (#125), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.2 (#199)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | 1461 | 1275 |
| LMArena Coding | 1467 | 1413 |
| ALE-Bench | 670.15 | 461.45 |
| SWE-bench Verified | 57.9% | — |
| SWE-bench Verified (bash only) | — | 55.4% |
| SciCode | 40.7% | — |
| GSO | — | 4.9% |
| WeirdML | — | 41.2% |
| AlgoTune | — | 1.44 |
Agentic & Tool Use Not comparable
Qwen3.6 Plus: —, Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 23.7 (#116)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 27.2% |
| Vending-Bench 2 | 5,115 | — |
Reasoning Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 28.5 (#89), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 24.7 (#141)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1449 | 1372 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 49.5% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | 60.3% | — |
| CritPt | 2.9% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | 17% | — |
| Thematic Generalization | 59.5% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 12% | — |
| DTBench | 81.9% | — |
| LMCA | 33.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 147.67 | — |
Math Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 50.6 (#44), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 34.9 (#151)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1450 | 1364 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 38.2% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 93.3% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 26.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 8.3% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 56.1 (#40), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 36.4 (#159)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1456 | 1337 |
| GPQA Diamond | 88.4% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 44.1% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 53.5 (#66), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 47.8 (#143)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1424 | 1345 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1478 | 1356 |
| LMArena French | 1454 | 1394 |
| LMArena German | 1451 | 1324 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1389 | 1309 |
| LMArena Korean | 1381 | 1307 |
| LMArena Russian | 1434 | 1367 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1432 | 1360 |
Instruction Following Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 75.2 (#70), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 71.8 (#142)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1425 | 1356 |
Long Context Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 45.1 (#48), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 42.0 (#126)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1440 | 1379 |
| CL-bench | 20.3% | — |
Writing & Preference Qwen3.6 Plus leads
Qwen3.6 Plus: 62.4 (#78), Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct: 55.5 (#142)
| Benchmark | Qwen3.6 Plus | Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1437 | 1356 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1405 | 1333 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1438 | 1365 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3.6 Plus better than Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3.6 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 47.3 to 37.7 on the Noometry Index.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.6 Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct?
Qwen3.6 Plus is cheaper. It lists at $0.50 per million input tokens and $3 per million output tokens; Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct lists at $1.50 and $7.50.
Is Qwen3.6 Plus or Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct better for coding?
Qwen3.6 Plus scores higher on coding benchmarks: 40.6 versus 36.2 in the Noometry coding category.
Which has the bigger context window?
Qwen3.6 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 262K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3.6 Plus and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct share?
19 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.6 Plus has 37 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3-Coder 480B-A35B Instruct has 25.