Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Qwen3.5 Flash
Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 80 to 71 and 60 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
GoogleGemma 4 26B A4B IT
71/100- ECI142.0
- Price$0.112 / $0.40
- Context262K
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
60/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 Flash
80/100- ECI143.6
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1M
Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick
Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (71) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
- CapabilityQwen3.5 FlashShared benchmarks: Qwen3.5 Flash 83.4% · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 77.7% · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%
- Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT $0.184 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 262,144 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.5 FlashGemma 4 26B A4B IT: Text, Images · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
- Self-hostingGemma 4 26B A4B IT and Seed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Gemma 4 26B A4B IT | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct | Qwen3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityShared benchmarks | 67% | 78 | 70 | 83 |
| Inputs & features | 20% | 70 | 35 | 80 |
| Context window | 13% | 37 | 49 | 60 |
| Overall | 100% | 71/100 | 60/100 | 80/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Gemma 4 26B A4B ITGoogle | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed | Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 142.0 | — | 143.6 (best) |
| ECI rank | #103 of 165 | — | #95 of 165 (best) |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 73.2% | 71.5% | 82.3% (best) |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | — | — | 18.3% |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 82.2% | 67.5% | 84.4% (best) |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | — | — | 20.3% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.112 | — | $0.10 (best) |
| Output | $0.40 | — | $0.40 |
| Cached input | — | — | $0.01 |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.184 | — | $0.175 (best) |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 26 providers | — | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 524,288 tokens | 1,000,000 tokens (best) |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) | 65,536 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | Yes |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Open | OpenApache 2.0 | Proprietary |
| API model ID | gemma-4-26b-a4b-it | — | qwen3.5-flash |
| API providers | 29 (best) | — | 9 |
| Released | Apr 2, 2026 | Aug 20, 2025 | Feb 23, 2026 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | Jul 2024 | — |
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$1.92
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
- Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3.5 Flash?
Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (71) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.
Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3.5 Flash?
Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Gemma 4 26B A4B IT costs $0.112 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (median across 26 API providers). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.175 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Flash versus $0.184 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT (1× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): Qwen3.5 Flash 83.4%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 77.7% and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 73.2%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 26B A4B IT 82.2%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 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 524,288 for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and 262,144 for Gemma 4 26B A4B IT. Maximum output per response: Gemma 4 26B A4B IT up to 32,768, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, 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; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Gemma 4 26B A4B IT and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) 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 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 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 Nov 2, 2026.
Related comparisons
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs DeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeek · ECI 146.2
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs GPT OSS 120BOpenAI · ECI 139.8
- Gemma 4 26B A4B IT vs MiniMax-M3MiniMax · ECI 146.9
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Claude Haiku 4.5Anthropic · ECI 142.2
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs GPT-5 NanoOpenAI · ECI 139.3
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs DeepSeek-R1DeepSeek · ECI 138.8
