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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Mercury Edit 2 vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B comes out ahead, 56 to 35 on our weighted score, though Mercury Edit 2 is 3.6× cheaper per token.

  1. Inception

    Mercury Edit 2

    Released Mar 30, 2026

    35/100
    • ECI—
    • Price$0.25 / $0.75
    • Context32K
    Full specs Remove Mercury Edit 2
  2. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    56/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is our pick

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Mercury Edit 2 (35). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mercury Edit 2 wins on price. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

  • CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
  • Lowest priceMercury Edit 2Mercury Edit 2 $0.375 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 · Mercury Edit 2 32,000 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17BMercury Edit 2: Text · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 397B-A17BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightMercury Edit 2Qwen3.5 397B-A17B
Price50%7044
Inputs & features30%090
Context window20%037
Overall100%35/10056/100

Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. 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.

Mercury Edit 2 vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B specifications side by side
SpecificationMercury Edit 2InceptionQwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)—146.7
ECI rank—#67 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—86.4%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—31.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—88.9%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.25 (best)$0.60
Output$0.75 (best)$3.60
Cached input$0.025—
Blended (3:1)$0.375 (best)$1.35
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Inception APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window32,000 tokens262,144 tokens (best)
Max output8,192 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoYes
VideoNoYes
ReasoningNoYes
Tool callingNoYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpen
API model IDmercury-edit-2qwen3.5-397b-a17b
API providers123 (best)
ReleasedMar 30, 2026Feb 15, 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.

  • Mercury Edit 2$4.00
  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Mercury Edit 2 or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B is the better all-round choice, scoring 56/100 against Mercury Edit 2 (35). It leads on inputs & features and context window. Mercury Edit 2 wins on price. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.

Which is cheaper, Mercury Edit 2 or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Mercury Edit 2 is cheaper at $0.25 input / $0.75 output per million tokens (official Inception API price). Qwen3.5 397B-A17B costs $0.60 input / $3.60 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.375 per million tokens for Mercury Edit 2 versus $1.35 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (3.6× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. Mercury Edit 2 has not been scored yet and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has an ECI of 146.7.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Mercury Edit 2 and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Mercury Edit 2 does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.

Which has the bigger context window?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B has the largest context window at 262,144 tokens, against 32,000 for Mercury Edit 2. Maximum output per response: Mercury Edit 2 up to 8,192, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Mercury Edit 2 accepts text; Qwen3.5 397B-A17B accepts text, images, audio and video. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Qwen3.5 397B-A17B publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Mercury Edit 2 is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Mercury Edit 2 is the newest, released Mar 30, 2026. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B came out Feb 15, 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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