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Comparison · 2 models · Updated Oct 4, 2026

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

Too close to call on our weighted score (Qwen3.5 Plus 66, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65). The right pick depends on what you value most.

  1. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 Plus

    Released Feb 16, 2026

    66/100
    • ECI146.8
    • Price$0.40 / $2.40
    • Context1M
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 Plus

  2. Alibaba (Qwen)

    Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

    Released Feb 15, 2026

    65/100
    • ECI146.7
    • Price$0.60 / $3.60
    • Context262K
    Full specs Remove Qwen3.5 397B-A17B

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01 — Verdict

Too close to call

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

  • CapabilityQwen3.5 PlusCapabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus $0.90 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B $1.35 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
  • Longest contextQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 Plus 1,000,000 · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 262,144 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 397B-A17BQwen3.5 Plus: Text, Images, Video · Qwen3.5 397B-A17B: Text, Images, Audio, Video
  • Self-hostingQwen3.5 397B-A17BPublishes downloadable weights
How the score is built
MeasureWeightQwen3.5 PlusQwen3.5 397B-A17B
CapabilityCapabilities Index (ECI)50%7474
Price25%5244
Inputs & features15%7090
Context window10%6037
Overall100%66/10065/100
02 — Side by side

Every spec in one table

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

Qwen3.5 Plus vs Qwen3.5 397B-A17B specifications side by side
SpecificationQwen3.5 PlusAlibaba (Qwen)Qwen3.5 397B-A17BAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)146.8 (best)146.7
ECI rank#65 of 148 (best)#67 of 148
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions84.9%86.4% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—31.2%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics86.7%88.9% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions25.4%—
Price per million tokens
Input$0.40 (best)$0.60
Output$2.40 (best)$3.60
Cached input——
Blended (3:1)$0.90 (best)$1.35
Long-context rateSame rateSame rate
Price sourceOfficial Alibaba APIOfficial Alibaba API
Limits
Context window1,000,000 tokens (best)262,144 tokens
Max output65,536 tokens65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesYesYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoYes
VideoYesYes
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsProprietaryOpen
API model IDqwen3.5-plusqwen3.5-397b-a17b
API providers1023 (best)
ReleasedFeb 16, 2026Feb 15, 2026
Knowledge cutoffApr 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 Plus$8.80
  • Qwen3.5 397B-A17B$13.20
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

It is close. Our weighted score puts them within 1 points (Qwen3.5 Plus 66/100, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 65/100), so choose by what matters most for your work: Qwen3.5 Plus for raw capability. The score weighs capability 50%, price 25%, inputs & features 15%, context window 10%.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5 Plus or Qwen3.5 397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5 Plus is cheaper at $0.40 input / $2.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba 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 $0.90 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Plus versus $1.35 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B (1.5× as much).

Which scores higher on benchmarks?

Qwen3.5 Plus scores higher on the Capabilities Index (ECI): Qwen3.5 Plus 146.8 (#65 of 148) and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 146.7 (#67 of 148). The confidence ranges of the top two overlap (144.6–148.1 vs 144.8–148.2), so treat the gap as small. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 86.4%, Qwen3.5 Plus 84.9%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 397B-A17B 88.9%, Qwen3.5 Plus 86.7%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3.5 Plus and Qwen3.5 397B-A17B yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. On overall capability, Qwen3.5 Plus 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 Plus has the largest context window at 1,000,000 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5 397B-A17B. Maximum output per response: Qwen3.5 Plus up to 65,536, Qwen3.5 397B-A17B up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Qwen3.5 Plus accepts text, images and video; 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; Qwen3.5 Plus is proprietary.

Which is newer?

Qwen3.5 Plus is the newest, released Feb 16, 2026. Qwen3.5 397B-A17B came out Feb 15, 2026. Knowledge cutoff: Qwen3.5 Plus Apr 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 Oct 4, 2026.

05 — Keep comparing

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