ZMIME
Comparison · 3 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Gemma 4 31B IT vs Qwen3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Flash

Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 75 to 70 and 69 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Google

    Gemma 4 31B IT

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI142.8
    • Price$0.14 / $0.40
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Gemma 4 31B IT
  2. Our pick

    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

  3. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.6 Flash

    Released Apr 27, 2026

    70/100
    • ECI143.3
    • Price$0.188 / $1.13
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.6 Flash
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 75/100 against Qwen3.6 Flash (70) and Gemma 4 31B IT (69). It leads 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 · Qwen3.6 Flash 143.3 · Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 31B IT $0.205 · Qwen3.6 Flash $0.422 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3.6 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Qwen3.6 Flash 1,000,000 · Gemma 4 31B IT 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3.6 FlashGemma 4 31B IT: Text, Images · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.6 Flash: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingGemma 4 31B ITPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightGemma 4 31B ITQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.6 Flash
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%697170
Price25%838668
Inputs & features15%708080
Context window10%376060
Overall100%69/10075/10070/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Gemma 4 31B IT vs Qwen3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Flash specifications side by side
SpecificationGemma 4 31B ITGoogleQwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.6 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)142.8144.0 (best)143.3
ECI rank#86 of 148#82 of 148 (best)#85 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions75.8%82.3%83.3% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—18.3%22.5% (best)
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics73.3%84.4% (best)84.4% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions10.4%20.3% (best)15.9%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.14$0.10 (best)$0.188
Output$0.40 (best)$0.40 (best)$1.13
Cached input—$0.01—
Blended (3:1)$0.205$0.175 (best)$0.422
Long-context rateSame rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 30 providersOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)1,000,000 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
WeightsOpenProprietaryProprietary
API model IDgemma-4-31b-itqwen3.5-flashqwen3.6-flash
API providers38 (best)816
ReleasedApr 2, 2026Feb 23, 2026Apr 27, 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 31B IT$2.20
  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
  • Qwen3.6 Flash$4.13
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Gemma 4 31B IT, Qwen3.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 75/100 against Qwen3.6 Flash (70) and Gemma 4 31B IT (69). It leads on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Gemma 4 31B IT, Qwen3.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Gemma 4 31B IT costs $0.14 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (median across 30 API providers); Qwen3.6 Flash costs $0.188 input / $1.13 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.175 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Flash versus $0.205 for Gemma 4 31B IT (1.2× as much) and $0.422 for Qwen3.6 Flash (2.4× 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), Qwen3.6 Flash 143.3 (#85 of 148) and Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8 (#86 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (141.6–145.5 vs 140.9–144.7), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.6 Flash 83.3%, Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Gemma 4 31B IT 75.8%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Qwen3.6 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 31B IT 73.3%; SimpleQA Verified — Qwen3.5 Flash 20.3%, Qwen3.6 Flash 15.9%, Gemma 4 31B IT 10.4%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Gemma 4 31B IT, Qwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3.6 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 and Qwen3.6 Flash have the largest context windows (1,000,000 and 1,000,000 tokens), against 262,144 for Gemma 4 31B IT. Maximum output per response: Gemma 4 31B IT up to 32,768, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536, Qwen3.6 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Gemma 4 31B IT accepts text and images; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.6 Flash accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Gemma 4 31B IT publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3.6 Flash is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.6 Flash is the newest, released Apr 27, 2026. Gemma 4 31B IT came out Apr 2, 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

Related comparisons