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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 vs Qwen3.5 Flash

Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 73 to 57 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507

    Released Jul 21, 2025

    57/100
    • ECI138.8
    • Price$0.199 / $0.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507
  2. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Flash

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    73/100
    • ECI143.6
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Flash

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 73/100 against Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 (57). It leads on capability, price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 FlashCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 143.6 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 138.8
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 $0.299 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 FlashQwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507: Text · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingQwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507Publishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507Qwen3.5 Flash
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%6369
Price25%7282
Inputs & features15%2580
Context window10%3760
Overall100%57/10073/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 vs Qwen3.5 Flash specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)138.8143.6 (best)
ECI rank#118 of 165#95 of 165 (best)
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions—82.3%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—18.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics—84.4%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—20.3%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.199$0.10 (best)
Output$0.60$0.40 (best)
Cached input—$0.01
Blended (3:1)$0.299$0.175 (best)
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceMedian of 23 providersOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window262,144 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output16,384 tokens65,536 tokens (best)
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoYes
ReasoningNoYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenApache 2.0Proprietary
API model ID—qwen3.5-flash
API providers25 (best)9
ReleasedJul 21, 2025Feb 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.

  • Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507$3.19
  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 73/100 against Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 (57). It leads on capability, price, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 costs $0.199 input / $0.60 output per million tokens (median across 23 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 $0.299 for Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 (1.7× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Flash scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Flash 143.6 (#95 of 165) and Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 138.8 (#118 of 165). Their confidence ranges do not overlap (141.4–145.0 vs 135.5–140.9), so the gap is a real one.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 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. Both 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 Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507. Maximum output per response: Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 up to 16,384, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 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?

Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the newest, released Feb 23, 2026. Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 came out Jul 21, 2025.

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.

05 — Keep comparing

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