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Comparison · 3 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Qwen3.5 Flash vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Gemma 4 31B IT

Qwen3.5 Flash comes out ahead, 80 to 69 and 60 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.

  1. Our pick

    Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Flash

    Released Feb 23, 2026

    80/100
    • ECI143.6
    • Price$0.10 / $0.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Flash

  2. ByteDance Seed

    Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

    Released Aug 20, 2025

    60/100
    • ECI—
    • Price—
    • Context524K
    Full specs Remove Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

  3. Google

    Gemma 4 31B IT

    Released Apr 2, 2026

    69/100
    • ECI143.1
    • Price$0.14 / $0.40
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Gemma 4 31B IT
01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against Gemma 4 31B IT (69) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 FlashShared benchmarks: Qwen3.5 Flash 83.4% · Gemma 4 31B IT 74.5% · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 · Gemma 4 31B IT $0.205 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash 1,000,000 · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Gemma 4 31B IT 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Gemma 4 31B IT: Text, Images
  • Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Gemma 4 31B ITPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 FlashSeed-OSS-36B-InstructGemma 4 31B IT
CapabilityShared benchmarks67%837075
Inputs & features20%803570
Context window13%604937
Overall100%80/10060/10069/100

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

Qwen3.5 Flash vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Gemma 4 31B IT specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance SeedGemma 4 31B ITGoogle
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)143.6 (best)—143.1
ECI rank#95 of 165 (best)—#96 of 165
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions82.3% (best)71.5%75.8%
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics18.3%——
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics84.4% (best)67.5%73.3%
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions20.3% (best)—10.4%
Price per million tokens
Input$0.10 (best)—$0.14
Output$0.40—$0.40
Cached input$0.01——
Blended (3:1)$0.175 (best)—$0.205
Long-context rateSame rate—Same rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba API—Median of 36 providers
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)524,288 tokens262,144 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens524,288 tokens (best)32,768 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYesYes
ImagesYesNoYes
PDFsNoNoNo
AudioNoNoNo
VideoYesNoNo
ReasoningYesYesYes
Tool callingYesYesYes
Structured outputYesNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpenApache 2.0Open
API model IDqwen3.5-flash—gemma-4-31b-it
API providers9—46 (best)
ReleasedFeb 23, 2026Aug 20, 2025Apr 2, 2026
Knowledge cutoff—Jul 2024Jan 2025
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.

  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
  • Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
  • Gemma 4 31B IT$2.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Flash, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Gemma 4 31B IT?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against Gemma 4 31B IT (69) and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (60). It leads on capability, inputs & features and context window. The score weighs capability 67%, inputs & features 20%, context window 13%. Capability uses the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025), because Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no Capabilities Index score yet.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Flash, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Gemma 4 31B IT?

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 36 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 $0.205 for Gemma 4 31B IT (1.2× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Not every model here has a Capabilities Index score, so we compare the average of shared benchmarks (GPQA Diamond and OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025): Qwen3.5 Flash 83.4%, Gemma 4 31B IT 74.5% and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Gemma 4 31B IT 75.8%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Gemma 4 31B IT 73.3%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Flash, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 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 524,288 for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and 262,144 for Gemma 4 31B IT. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, 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; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Gemma 4 31B IT accepts text and images. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Gemma 4 31B IT publishes its weights (Apache 2.0) 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; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024, Gemma 4 31B IT Jan 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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