# Gemma 3 4B vs Qwen3.5-9B

> Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-9B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/gemma-3-4b-vs-qwen3-5-9b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 6

## Summary

- They share 6 benchmarks with published results for both. Gemma 3 4B scores higher in 1 category and Qwen3.5-9B in 4 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5-9B leads 46.0 to 11.8.
- The biggest single-benchmark swing is GPQA Diamond: 23.2% for Gemma 3 4B and 79% for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Gemma 3 4B is cheaper at $0.04 / $0.08 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.15 for Qwen3.5-9B.
- Qwen3.5-9B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 131K.

## Snapshot

| | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Google | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 27.9 | 33.3 |
| Rank | 320 | 235 |
| Context | 131K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.04 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $0.08 | $0.15 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Gemma 3 4B: 35.3 (#214)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 35.3 (#213)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| SciCode | — | 27.5% |
| LMArena Coding | 1230 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Gemma 3 4B: 20.7 (#134)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 14.4 (#143)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Terminal-Bench | — | 9.2% |
| Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard | 19.6% | — |

## Reasoning

- Gemma 3 4B: 12.7 (#330)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 22.5 (#178)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| Chess Puzzles | 0% | 12% |
| DTBench | 50.9% | 71.2% |
| LMCA | 2.8% | 24.5% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 116.02 | 139.45 |
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | 25.2% | — |
| CritPt | — | 0.3% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1253 | — |

## Math

- Gemma 3 4B: 15.8 (#286)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 33.5 (#174)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 7.5% | 61.7% |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 48.5% |
| LMArena Math | 1239 | — |

## Knowledge

- Gemma 3 4B: 11.8 (#294)
- Qwen3.5-9B: 46.0 (#77)

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | 23.2% | 79% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 6.4% | — |
| LMArena Expert | 1223 | — |

## Multilingual

- Gemma 3 4B: 42.7 (#189)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1273 | — |
| LMArena German | 1281 | — |
| LMArena Russian | 1294 | — |

## Instruction Following

- Gemma 3 4B: 65.4 (#219)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1239 | — |

## Long Context

- Gemma 3 4B: 38.6 (#189)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1274 | — |

## Writing & Preference

- Gemma 3 4B: 42.2 (#234)
- Qwen3.5-9B: —

| Benchmark | Gemma 3 4B | Qwen3.5-9B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1291 | — |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1270 | — |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | 1068 | — |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1255 | — |

## FAQ

### Is Gemma 3 4B better than Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B is the stronger model overall, scoring 33.3 to 27.9 on the Noometry Index. Gemma 3 4B costs 2.3× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5-9B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Gemma 3 4B is cheaper. It lists at $0.04 per million input tokens and $0.08 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5-9B lists at $0.10 and $0.15.

### Is Gemma 3 4B or Qwen3.5-9B better for coding?

They score almost the same on coding (35.3 vs 35.3); test both on your own repository before choosing.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-9B does, with 262K tokens against 131K.

### How many benchmarks do Gemma 3 4B and Qwen3.5-9B share?

6 benchmarks have published results for both models. Gemma 3 4B has 22 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-9B has 10.