Model comparison
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct vs Step 3.5 Flash
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.0 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Last verified . 17 shared benchmarks.
Alibaba (Qwen)
StepFunSummary
- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct scores higher in 4 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 4 categories; 6 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads 31.1 to 22.2.
- Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.50 / $2 for Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct.
- Step 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 256K tokens versus 131K.
Side by side
| Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash | |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 43.0 | 42.3 |
| Released | 2025-09 | 2026-01-29 |
| Weights | Open | Open |
| Context window | 131K | 256K |
| Max output | 33K | 256K |
| Input $ / M tokens | $0.50 | $0.10 |
| Output $ / M tokens | $2 | $0.30 |
| Results tracked | 25 | 19 |
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Category by category
Coding Too close to call
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 42.5 (#98), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.4 (#105)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1440 | 1436 |
Reasoning Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 31.1 (#81), Step 3.5 Flash: 22.2 (#202)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1428 | 1411 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 66.7% | — |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
Math Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 38.8 (#126), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.6 (#84)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1440 | 1408 |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| Omni-MATH | 46.7% | — |
Knowledge Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 41.8 (#106), Step 3.5 Flash: 39.6 (#132)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1417 | 1421 |
| MMLU-Pro | 78.6% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 9.3% | — |
| GPQA (HELM) | 63% | — |
Multilingual Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 52.1 (#93), Step 3.5 Flash: 50.5 (#119)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1407 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1460 | 1447 |
| LMArena French | 1413 | 1421 |
| LMArena German | 1417 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1395 | 1354 |
| LMArena Korean | 1364 | 1352 |
| LMArena Russian | 1404 | 1385 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1435 | 1419 |
Instruction Following Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 70.8 (#159), Step 3.5 Flash: 73.1 (#124)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1389 | 1385 |
| IFEval | 81% | — |
Long Context Step 3.5 Flash leads
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 37.0 (#223), Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#117)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1403 | 1402 |
| Fiction.LiveBench | 55.6% | — |
Writing & Preference Too close to call
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct: 58.0 (#121), Step 3.5 Flash: 58.8 (#113)
| Benchmark | Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1417 | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1334 | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1416 | 1405 |
| WildBench | 80.7% | — |
Frequently asked questions
Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct better than Step 3.5 Flash?
Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (43.0 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct 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-Next 80B-A3B Instruct lists at $0.50 and $2.
Is Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?
They score almost the same on coding (42.5 vs 42.4); test both on your own repository before choosing.
Which has the bigger context window?
Step 3.5 Flash does, with 256K tokens against 131K.
How many benchmarks do Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct and Step 3.5 Flash share?
17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3-Next 80B-A3B Instruct has 25 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.