# Gemma 3 27B vs Qwen3.5 Plus

> Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 9.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-27b-vs-qwen3-5-plus
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 7

## Summary

- They share 7 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 27B scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5 Plus in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in math, where Qwen3.5 Plus leads 47.9 to 24.4.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025: 22.5% for Gemma 3 27B and 86.7% for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Gemma 3 27B is cheaper at $0.08 / $0.16 per million input/output tokens, against $0.40 / $2.40 for Qwen3.5 Plus.
- Qwen3.5 Plus accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 131K.
- Gemma 3 27B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.5 | 42.3 |
| Rank | 277 | 103 |
| Context | 131K | 1M |
| Input $/M | $0.08 | $0.40 |
| Output $/M | $0.16 | $2.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 27B: 22.1 (#329)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Aider Polyglot | 4.9% | — |
| SciCode | 21.2% | — |
| LiveBench Coding | 39.9% | — |
| LMArena Coding | 1322 | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 621.92 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.9 (#105)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 29.5% | — |
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 0.54 |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 27B: 16.3 (#297)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 32.0 (#67)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 22% |
| DTBench | 52.5% | 80.5% |
| LMCA | 12.3% | 36.4% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 130.04 | 146.79 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 40.4% | — |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 43.8% | — |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1340 | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 17% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 51.5% | — |
| LiveBench | 50% | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 27B: 24.4 (#261)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 47.9 (#55)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 22.5% | 86.7% |
| LiveBench Math | 55.4% | — |
| LMArena Math | 1312 | — |
| MATH Level 5 | 74% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 21% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 2.1% |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 27B: 25.4 (#256)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 46.0 (#78)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 47.7% | 84.8% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 7.4% | 10.7% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 25.4% |
| Confabulations | 40.3% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1303 | — |

## Multimodal

- Gemma 3 27B: 32.0 (#94)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | 1165 | — |
| GeoBench | 52% | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 27B: 47.0 (#150)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1334 | — |
| LMArena Chinese | 1347 | — |
| LMArena French | 1368 | — |
| LMArena German | 1362 | — |
| LMArena Japanese | 1287 | — |
| LMArena Korean | 1308 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1349 | — |
| LMArena Spanish | 1348 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 27B: 70.8 (#155)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 74.9% | — |
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1321 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 27B: 27.6 (#288)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: 42.9 (#109)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Fiction.LiveBench | 33.3% | — |
| CL-bench | — | 19.8% |
| CL-bench Life | — | 12.4% |
| LMArena Longer Query | 1333 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 27B: 52.7 (#161)
- Qwen3.5 Plus: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 27B | Qwen3.5 Plus |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1358 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1346 | — |
| Short-Story Creative Writing | 79.9% | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1266 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1344 | — |
| LiveBench Language | 34.6% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 27B better than Qwen3.5 Plus?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.3 to 30.5 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 27B costs 9.0× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 Plus's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 27B or Qwen3.5 Plus?

Gemma 3 27B is cheaper. It lists at $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.16 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 Plus lists at $0.40 and $2.40.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Plus does, with 1M tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 27B and Qwen3.5 Plus share?

7 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 27B has 43 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 Plus has 15.