Qwen3.5 Flash vs Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507
Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 73 to 57 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 Flash
73/100- ECI143.6
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1M
- Alibaba (Qwen)
Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507
57/100- ECI138.8
- Price$0.199 / $0.60
- Context262K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
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 FlashQwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507: Text
- Self-hostingQwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507Publishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
| Measure | Weight | Qwen3.5 Flash | Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 69 | 63 |
| Price | 25% | 82 | 72 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 80 | 25 |
| Context window | 10% | 60 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 73/100 | 57/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen) | Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 143.6 (best) | 138.8 |
| ECI rank | #95 of 165 (best) | #118 of 165 |
| 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 | $0.10 (best) | $0.199 |
| Output | $0.40 (best) | $0.60 |
| Cached input | $0.01 | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.175 (best) | $0.299 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Alibaba API | Median of 23 providers |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens (best) | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens (best) | 16,384 tokens |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 |
| API model ID | qwen3.5-flash | — |
| API providers | 9 | 25 (best) |
| Released | Feb 23, 2026 | Jul 21, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
- Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507$3.19
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen3.5 Flash or Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507?
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, Qwen3.5 Flash or Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507?
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 Qwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 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: Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536, Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 up to 16,384 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video; Qwen3 235B-A22B Instruct 2507 accepts text. 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.
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