# Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct vs Qwen3.5-Flash

> Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-3-small-8k-instruct-vs-qwen3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-12
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct scores higher in 0 categories and Qwen3.5-Flash in 8 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in writing & preference, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 57.9 to 31.1.
- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 29.3 | 42.5 |
| Rank | 314 | 112 |
| Context | — | 1M |
| Input $/M | — | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | — | $0.40 |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.9 (#318)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1101 | 1412 |
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1244 |
| LiveBench Coding | 20.3% | — |
| ALE-Bench | — | 221.8 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: —
- Qwen3.5-Flash: —

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | — | 462.69 |

## Reasoning

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 14.8 (#323)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1100 | 1403 |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 21% |
| LiveBench Reasoning | 15.9% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 20% |
| DTBench | — | 82.9% |
| LiveBench Data Analysis | 30.3% | — |
| LMCA | — | 29.1% |
| Adversarial NLI | 58.1% | — |
| BIG-Bench Hard | 79.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 143.98 |
| HellaSwag | 77% | — |
| LiveBench | 24% | — |
| WinoGrande | 81.5% | — |

## Math

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 27.6 (#248)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1151 | 1407 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 18.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 84.4% |
| LiveBench Math | 17.6% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | — | 6.2% |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | — | 0% |

## Knowledge

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 29.1 (#240)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1067 | 1407 |
| GPQA Diamond | — | 82.3% |
| SimpleQA Verified | — | 20.3% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | — | 10.5% |
| ARC (AI2) Challenge | 90.7% | — |
| MMLU | 75.7% | — |
| OpenBookQA | 88% | — |
| TriviaQA | 58.1% | — |

## Multilingual

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 28.5 (#272)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1058 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1061 | 1446 |
| LMArena French | 1135 | 1412 |
| LMArena German | 1080 | 1390 |
| LMArena Japanese | 966 | 1368 |
| LMArena Korean | 894 | 1344 |
| LMArena Russian | 1111 | 1379 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1111 | 1400 |

## Instruction Following

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 51.9 (#292)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1087 | 1374 |
| LiveBench Instruction Following | 47.2% | — |

## Long Context

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 33.0 (#267)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1088 | 1392 |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct: 31.1 (#284)
- Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)

| Benchmark | Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct | Qwen3.5-Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1110 | 1397 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1083 | 1343 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1068 | 1393 |
| LiveBench Language | 12.9% | — |

## FAQ

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct better than Qwen3.5-Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash is the stronger model overall, scoring 42.5 to 29.3 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct or Qwen3.5-Flash better for coding?

Qwen3.5-Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 34.2 versus 27.9 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct and Qwen3.5-Flash share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi 3 Small 8k Instruct has 32 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5-Flash has 32.
