ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Qwen3.5 Flash

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Flash 75, Qwen3.5 9B 72, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 70). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Google

    Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI141.9
    • Price$0.10 / $0.38
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Gemma 4 26B A4B IT

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 9B

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    72/100
    • ECI139.5
    • Price$0.10 / $0.15
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 9B

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Flash

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    75/100
    • ECI144.0
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Flash
01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3.5 Flash 75/100, Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 70/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Flash for raw capability and Qwen3.5 9B on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 FlashCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 144.0 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 141.9 · Qwen3.5 9B 139.5
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 9B $0.113 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT $0.17 · Qwen3.5 Flash $0.175 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 262,144 · Qwen3.5 9B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 9B and Qwen3.5 FlashGemma 4 26B A4B IT: Text, Images · Qwen3.5 9B: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingGemma 4 26B A4B IT and Qwen3.5 9BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGemma 4 26B A4B ITQwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 Flash
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%686571
Price25%869586
Inputs & features15%708080
Context window10%373760
Overall100%70/10072/10075/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Qwen3.5 Flash specifications side by side
SpecificationGemma 4 26B A4B ITGoogleQwen3.5 9BAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)141.9139.5144.0 (best)
ECI rank#93 of 148#101 of 148#82 of 148 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions73.2%79.0%82.3% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics——18.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics82.2%61.7%84.4% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions——20.3%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10$0.10$0.10
Output$0.38$0.15 (best)$0.40
Cached input——$0.01
Blended (3:1)$0.17$0.113 (best)$0.175
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 23 providersMedian of 14 providersOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output32,768 tokens65,536 tokens (best)65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesYesYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoNoYesYes
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesYesYes
Availability
WeightsOpenOpenProprietary
API model IDgemma-4-26b-a4b-it—qwen3.5-flash
API providers26 (best)158
ReleasedApr 2, 2026Feb 23, 2026Feb 23, 2026
Knowledge cutoff———
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.

  • Gemma 4 26B A4B IT$1.76
  • Qwen3.5 9B$1.30
  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Qwen3.5 9B or Qwen3.5 Flash?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3.5 Flash 75/100, Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 70/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Flash for raw capability and Qwen3.5 9B on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Qwen3.5 9B or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 9B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 14 API providers). Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs $0.10 input / $0.38 output per million tokens (median across 23 API providers); Qwen3.5 Flash costs $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.113 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 9B versus $0.17 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (1.5× as much) and $0.175 for Qwen3.5 Flash (1.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Flash scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 144.0 (#82 of 148), Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 141.9 (#93 of 148) and Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 (#101 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (141.6–145.5 vs 138.4–143.4), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Qwen3.5 9B 79.0%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 73.2%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 82.2%, Qwen3.5 9B 61.7%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Qwen3.5 9B and Qwen3.5 Flash yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Flash leads, which tends to carry over to coding, but test on your own codebase. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 Flash has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and 262,144 for Qwen3.5 9B. Maximum output per response: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT up to 32,768, Qwen3.5 9B up to 65,536, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT accepts text and images; Qwen3.5 9B accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 9B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and Qwen3.5 9B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Gemma 4 26B A4B IT is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 9B came out Feb 23, 2026; Qwen3.5 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026.

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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