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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B vs Qwen3 32B vs QwQ 32B

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3 32B 53, QwQ 32B 52, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 47). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. DeepSeek

    DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B

    Released Jan 20, 2025

    47/100
    • ECI137.4
    • Price—
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 32B

    Released Apr 29, 2025

    53/100
    • ECI138.5
    • Price$0.70 / $2.80
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 32B

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    QwQ 32B

    Released Mar 5, 2025

    52/100
    • ECI137.6
    • Price$0.66 / $1.00
    • Context131K
    Full specs Remove QwQ 32B
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3 32B 53/100, QwQ 32B 52/100, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 47/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 32B for raw capability and QwQ 32B on price. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

  • CapabilityQwen3 32BCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 32B 138.5 · QwQ 32B 137.6 · DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 137.4
  • Lowest priceQwQ 32BQwQ 32B $0.745 · Qwen3 32B $1.23 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B unpriced
  • Longest contextAbout the sameDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 131,072 · Qwen3 32B 131,072 · QwQ 32B 131,072 tokens
  • Widest inputsSame inputsDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B: Text · Qwen3 32B: Text · QwQ 32B: Text
  • Self-hostingAll open weightsEvery model here can be downloaded and run on your own hardware
How the score is built
MeasureWeightDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32BQwen3 32BQwQ 32B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)67%626462
Inputs & features20%103535
Context window13%242424
Overall100%47/10053/10052/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.

02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B vs Qwen3 32B vs QwQ 32B specifications side by side
SpecificationDeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32BDeepSeekQwen3 32BAlibaba (Qwen)QwQ 32BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)137.4138.5 (best)137.6
ECI rank#110 of 148#106 of 148 (best)#109 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions64.1%65.7% (best)65.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics55.6%66.9% (best)59.2%
Price per million tokens
Input—$0.70$0.66 (best)
Output—$2.80$1.00 (best)
Cached input———
Blended (3:1)—$1.23$0.745 (best)
Long-context rate—Same rateSame rate
Price source—Official Alibaba APIMedian of 1 providers
Limits
Context window131,072 tokens131,072 tokens131,072 tokens
Max output32,768 tokens (best)16,384 tokens8,192 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesNoNoNo
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingNoYesYes
Structured outputNoNoNo
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenOpen
API model ID—qwen3-32b—
API providers—14 (best)1
ReleasedJan 20, 2025Apr 29, 2025Mar 5, 2025
Knowledge cutoff—Apr 2025Apr 2024
03 — Cost

What would a month cost?

Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.

  • DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B—
  • Qwen3 32B$12.60
  • QwQ 32B$8.60
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Qwen3 32B or QwQ 32B?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within a point (Qwen3 32B 53/100, QwQ 32B 52/100, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 47/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3 32B for raw capability and QwQ 32B on price. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%.

Which is cheaper, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Qwen3 32B or QwQ 32B?

QwQ 32B is cheaper at $0.66 input / $1.00 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Qwen3 32B costs $0.70 input / $2.80 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.745 per million tokens for QwQ 32B versus $1.23 for Qwen3 32B (1.6× as much). DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3 32B scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3 32B 138.5 (#106 of 148), QwQ 32B 137.6 (#109 of 148) and DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 137.4 (#110 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (135.1–140.4 vs 133.1–141.7), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3 32B 65.7%, QwQ 32B 65.3%, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 64.1%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3 32B 66.9%, QwQ 32B 59.2%, DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B 55.6%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Qwen3 32B and QwQ 32B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3 32B leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. Note that DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Which has the bigger context window?

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Qwen3 32B and QwQ 32B share the same 131,072-token context window. Maximum output per response: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B up to 32,768, Qwen3 32B up to 16,384, QwQ 32B up to 8,192 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B accepts text; Qwen3 32B accepts text; QwQ 32B accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.

Are any of these open source?

Yes, all three publish their weights, so you can self-host them.

Which is newer?

Qwen3 32B is the newest, released Apr 29, 2025. QwQ 32B came out Mar 5, 2025; DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B came out Jan 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3 32B Apr 2025, QwQ 32B Apr 2024.

How do you decide the winner?

Each model gets a 0–100 score on capability (50%, independent benchmark results); price (25%, blended price per million tokens (3 input : 1 output), log scale); inputs & features (15%, image, PDF, audio and video input, tool calling, structured output and reasoning); context window (10%, maximum tokens per request, log scale). Dimensions missing for any model are dropped and the remaining weights rescaled, so every model is judged on the same evidence. Specs and prices come from public model listings and the labs’ own API pages; capability scores come from independent benchmark runs. Data updated Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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