# Phi-4 Mini vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

> Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/phi-4-mini-vs-qwen3-5-397b-a17b
- Last updated: 2026-10-10
- Shared benchmarks: 0

## Summary

- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Qwen3.5 397B-A17B leads 53.3 to 24.8.
- Phi-4 Mini is cheaper at $0.075 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.60 / $3.60 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B.
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts more context: 262K tokens versus 128K.

## Snapshot

| | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Microsoft | Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Noometry Index | 30.4 | 45.7 |
| Rank | 280 | 60 |
| Context | 128K | 262K |
| Input $/M | $0.075 | $0.60 |
| Output $/M | $0.30 | $3.60 |
| Weights | Open | Open |

## Coding

- Phi-4 Mini: 27.6 (#312)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 41.7 (#108)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena WebDev | — | 1400 |
| SciCode | 10.8% | — |
| LMArena Coding | — | 1464 |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.2 (#51)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| APEX-Agents | — | 24.9% |
| τ²-bench Airline | — | 81.5% |
| τ²-bench Banking | — | 9.8% |
| τ²-bench Retail | — | 84.4% |
| τ²-bench Telecom | — | 97.8% |

## Reasoning

- Phi-4 Mini: 21.7 (#190)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 33.6 (#62)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| Kagi LLM Benchmark | — | 73.7% |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 58.9% |
| CritPt | 0% | — |
| Chess Puzzles | — | 13% |
| Thematic Generalization | — | 65.1% |
| LMArena Hard Prompts | — | 1448 |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | — | 18% |
| DTBench | — | 87.5% |
| LMCA | — | 37.9% |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | — | 146.64 |

## Math

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.9 (#64)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | — | 31.2% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | — | 88.9% |
| LMArena Math | — | 1455 |

## Knowledge

- Phi-4 Mini: 24.8 (#261)
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 53.3 (#53)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| GPQA Diamond | — | 86.4% |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 23.5% | — |
| LMArena Expert | — | 1461 |

## Multimodal

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 40.0 (#42)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Vision | — | 1262 |

## Multilingual

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 54.0 (#56)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | — | 1431 |
| LMArena Chinese | — | 1501 |
| LMArena French | — | 1461 |
| LMArena German | — | 1447 |
| LMArena Japanese | — | 1427 |
| LMArena Korean | — | 1382 |
| LMArena Russian | — | 1429 |
| LMArena Spanish | — | 1443 |

## Instruction Following

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 75.2 (#73)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | — | 1424 |

## Long Context

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 44.1 (#71)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | — | 1442 |

## Writing & Preference

- Phi-4 Mini: —
- Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: 62.5 (#74)

| Benchmark | Phi-4 Mini | Qwen3.5 397B-A17B |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | — | 1438 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | — | 1401 |
| EQ-Bench Creative Writing | — | 1478 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | — | 1447 |

## FAQ

### Is Phi-4 Mini better than Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the stronger model overall, scoring 45.7 to 30.4 on the Noometry Index. Phi-4 Mini costs 10× less per token, which makes it the better buy when Qwen3.5 397B-A17B's lead doesn't matter for your workload.

### Which is cheaper, Phi-4 Mini or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Phi-4 Mini is cheaper. It lists at $0.075 per million input tokens and $0.30 per million output tokens; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B lists at $0.60 and $3.60.

### Is Phi-4 Mini or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B better for coding?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 41.7 versus 27.6 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B does, with 262K tokens against 128K.

### How many benchmarks do Phi-4 Mini and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B share?

0 benchmarks have published results for both models. Phi-4 Mini has 3 scored results on Noometry and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has 36.