# Qwen3.5-Flash vs Step 3.5 Flash

> Qwen3.5-Flash and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (42.5 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen3-5-flash-vs-step-3-5-flash
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen3.5-Flash scores higher in 2 categories and Step 3.5 Flash in 6 categories; 4 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in reasoning, where Qwen3.5-Flash leads 33.7 to 22.2.
- Step 3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 / $0.30 per million input/output tokens, against $0.10 / $0.40 for Qwen3.5-Flash.
- Qwen3.5-Flash accepts more context: 1M tokens versus 256K.
- Step 3.5 Flash has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | StepFun |
| Noometry Index | 42.5 | 42.3 |
| Rank | 112 | 116 |
| Context | 1M | 256K |
| Input $/M | $0.10 | $0.10 |
| Output $/M | $0.40 | $0.30 |
| Weights | Proprietary | Open |

## Coding

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 34.2 (#242)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 42.4 (#105)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1412 | 1436 |
| LMArena WebDev | 1244 | — |
| ALE-Bench | 221.8 | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen3.5-Flash: —
- Step 3.5 Flash: —

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Vending-Bench 2 | 462.69 | — |

## Reasoning

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 33.7 (#72)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 22.2 (#202)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1403 | 1411 |
| NYT Connections (extended) | — | 28.4% |
| Chess Puzzles | 21% | — |
| Mystery Game Puzzles | 20% | — |
| DTBench | 82.9% | — |
| LMCA | 29.1% | — |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 143.98 | — |

## Math

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 37.4 (#158)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 42.6 (#84)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1407 | 1408 |
| FrontierMath (Tiers 1-3) | 18.2% | — |
| MathArena Final-Answer Competitions | — | 66.8% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024-2025 | 84.4% | — |
| FrontierMath (Feb 2025 set) | 6.2% | — |
| FrontierMath Tier 4 (v1) | 0% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 43.2 (#93)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 39.6 (#132)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1407 | 1421 |
| GPQA Diamond | 82.3% | — |
| SimpleQA Verified | 20.3% | — |
| Vectara Hallucination Rate | 10.5% | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 50.5 (#121)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 50.5 (#119)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1385 | 1385 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1446 | 1447 |
| LMArena French | 1412 | 1421 |
| LMArena German | 1390 | 1405 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1368 | 1354 |
| LMArena Korean | 1344 | 1352 |
| LMArena Russian | 1379 | 1385 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1400 | 1419 |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 72.6 (#139)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 73.1 (#124)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1374 | 1385 |

## Long Context

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 42.4 (#124)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 42.8 (#117)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1392 | 1402 |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen3.5-Flash: 57.9 (#122)
- Step 3.5 Flash: 58.8 (#113)

| Benchmark | Qwen3.5-Flash | Step 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1397 | 1403 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1343 | 1357 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1393 | 1405 |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen3.5-Flash better than Step 3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5-Flash and Step 3.5 Flash score almost the same on the Noometry Index (42.5 vs 42.3), so choose on price, context window or the category you care about most.

### Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-Flash 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; Qwen3.5-Flash lists at $0.10 and $0.40.

### Is Qwen3.5-Flash or Step 3.5 Flash better for coding?

Step 3.5 Flash scores higher on coding benchmarks: 42.4 versus 34.2 in the Noometry coding category.

### Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5-Flash does, with 1M tokens against 256K.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen3.5-Flash and Step 3.5 Flash share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen3.5-Flash has 32 scored results on Noometry and Step 3.5 Flash has 19.