Qwen3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.5 9B vs Gemma 4 31B IT
Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Flash 75, Qwen3.5 9B 72, Gemma 4 31B IT 69). The right pick depends on what you value most.
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 Flash
75/100- ECI144.0
- Price$0.10 / $0.40
- Context1M
- Alibaba (Qwen)
Qwen3.5 9B
72/100- ECI139.5
- Price$0.10 / $0.15
- Context262K
GoogleGemma 4 31B IT
69/100- ECI142.8
- Price$0.14 / $0.40
- Context262K
Too close to call
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3.5 Flash 75/100, Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemma 4 31B IT 69/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Flash for raw capability and Qwen3.5 9B 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 · Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8 · Qwen3.5 9B 139.5
- Lowest priceQwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 9B $0.113 · Qwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 31B IT $0.205 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Qwen3.5 9B 262,144 · Gemma 4 31B IT 262,144 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3.5 Flash and Qwen3.5 9BQwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.5 9B: Text, Images, Video · Gemma 4 31B IT: Text, Images
- Self-hostingQwen3.5 9B and Gemma 4 31B ITPublishes downloadable weights
| Measure | Weight | Qwen3.5 Flash | Qwen3.5 9B | Gemma 4 31B IT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI) | 50% | 71 | 65 | 69 |
| Price | 25% | 86 | 95 | 83 |
| Inputs & features | 15% | 80 | 80 | 70 |
| Context window | 10% | 60 | 37 | 37 |
| Overall | 100% | 75/100 | 72/100 | 69/100 |
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen) | Qwen3.5 9BAlibaba (Qwen) | Gemma 4 31B ITGoogle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | 144.0 (best) | 139.5 | 142.8 |
| ECI rank | #82 of 148 (best) | #101 of 148 | #86 of 148 |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | 82.3% (best) | 79.0% | 75.8% |
| FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics | 18.3% | — | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | 84.4% (best) | 61.7% | 73.3% |
| SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions | 20.3% (best) | — | 10.4% |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.10 (best) | $0.10 (best) | $0.14 |
| Output | $0.40 | $0.15 (best) | $0.40 |
| Cached input | $0.01 | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.175 | $0.113 (best) | $0.205 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Alibaba API | Median of 14 providers | Median of 30 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 1,000,000 tokens (best) | 262,144 tokens | 262,144 tokens |
| Max output | 65,536 tokens (best) | 65,536 tokens (best) | 32,768 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | Yes | Yes | No |
| Reasoning | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | Open | Open |
| API model ID | qwen3.5-flash | — | gemma-4-31b-it |
| API providers | 8 | 15 | 38 (best) |
| Released | Feb 23, 2026 | Feb 23, 2026 | Apr 2, 2026 |
| 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
- Qwen3.5 9B$1.30
- Gemma 4 31B IT$2.20
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen3.5 Flash, Qwen3.5 9B or Gemma 4 31B IT?
It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 3 points (Qwen3.5 Flash 75/100, Qwen3.5 9B 72/100, Gemma 4 31B IT 69/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Flash for raw capability and Qwen3.5 9B on price. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Flash, Qwen3.5 9B or Gemma 4 31B IT?
Qwen3.5 9B is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 14 API providers). Qwen3.5 Flash costs $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). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.113 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 9B versus $0.175 for Qwen3.5 Flash (1.6× as much) and $0.205 for Gemma 4 31B IT (1.8× 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), Gemma 4 31B IT 142.8 (#86 of 148) and Qwen3.5 9B 139.5 (#101 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (141.6–145.5 vs 140.3–144.9), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Qwen3.5 9B 79.0%, Gemma 4 31B IT 75.8%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 31B IT 73.3%, Qwen3.5 9B 61.7%.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Flash, Qwen3.5 9B and Gemma 4 31B IT 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 262,144 for Qwen3.5 9B and 262,144 for Gemma 4 31B IT. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536, Qwen3.5 9B up to 65,536, Gemma 4 31B IT up to 32,768 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video; Qwen3.5 9B accepts text, images and video; Gemma 4 31B IT accepts text and images. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Qwen3.5 9B and Gemma 4 31B IT publishes its weights and can be self-hosted; Qwen3.5 Flash is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Gemma 4 31B IT is the newest, released Apr 2, 2026. Qwen3.5 Flash came out Feb 23, 2026; Qwen3.5 9B 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.
