Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) vs Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Trinity Mini
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) comes out ahead, 45 to 40 and 31 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
- Our pick
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)
45/100- ECI—
- Price$0.022 / $0.215
- Context262K
ByteDance SeedSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct
40/100- ECI—
- Price—
- Context524K
Arcee AITrinity Mini
31/100- ECI—
- Price$0.045 / $0.15
- Context131K
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is our pick
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is the better all-round choice, scoring 45/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40) and Trinity Mini (31). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
- CapabilityNot enough dataNo independent benchmark covers every model here yet
- Lowest priceQwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) $0.07 · Trinity Mini $0.071 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend) · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct unpriced
- Longest contextSeed-OSS-36B-InstructSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct 524,288 · Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) 262,144 · Trinity Mini 131,072 tokens
- Widest inputsQwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud): Text, Images · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Trinity Mini: Text
- Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Trinity MiniPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0 and OpenMDW-1.1)
| Measure | Weight | Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) | Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct | Trinity Mini |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs & features | 60% | 50 | 35 | 35 |
| Context window | 40% | 37 | 49 | 25 |
| Overall | 100% | 45/100 | 40/100 | 31/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability and price. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)Alibaba (Qwen) | Seed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance Seed | Trinity MiniArcee AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capability | |||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — | — |
| GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions | — | 71.5% | — |
| OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics | — | 67.5% | — |
| Price per million tokens | |||
| Input | $0.022 (best) | — | $0.045 |
| Output | $0.215 | — | $0.15 (best) |
| Cached input | — | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.07 (best) | — | $0.071 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | — | Same rate |
| Price source | Median of 1 providers | — | Median of 1 providers |
| Limits | |||
| Context window | 262,144 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) | 131,072 tokens |
| Max output | 32,768 tokens | 524,288 tokens (best) | 131,072 tokens |
| Inputs and features | |||
| Text | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No | No |
| Audio | No | No | No |
| Video | No | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | Yes | Yes |
| Tool calling | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Structured output | No | No | No |
| Availability | |||
| Weights | Proprietary | OpenApache 2.0 | OpenOpenMDW-1.1 |
| API model ID | — | — | — |
| API providers | 1 | — | 1 |
| Released | Oct 15, 2025 | Aug 20, 2025 | Dec 1, 2025 |
| Knowledge cutoff | — | Jul 2024 | — |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud)$0.65
- Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
- Trinity Mini$0.75
Which should you choose?
Which is better: Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud), Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Trinity Mini?
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is the better all-round choice, scoring 45/100 against Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct (40) and Trinity Mini (31). It leads on inputs & features. Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct wins on context window. The score weighs inputs & features 60%, context window 40%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud), Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Trinity Mini?
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is cheaper at $0.022 input / $0.215 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). Trinity Mini costs $0.045 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (median across 1 API provider). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.07 per million tokens for Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) versus $0.071 for Trinity Mini (1× as much). Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has no published per-token price.
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers all three models yet. Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) has not been scored yet, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has not been scored yet and Trinity Mini has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud), Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Trinity Mini yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. All three support tool calling for agent workflows.
Which has the bigger context window?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct has the largest context window at 524,288 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) and 131,072 for Trinity Mini. Maximum output per response: Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) up to 32,768, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, Trinity Mini up to 131,072 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) accepts text and images; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Trinity Mini accepts text. Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) handles the widest range of inputs.
Are any of these open source?
Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Trinity Mini publishes its weights (Apache 2.0 and OpenMDW-1.1) and can be self-hosted; Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) is proprietary.
Which is newer?
Trinity Mini is the newest, released Dec 1, 2025. Qwen3 VL Flash (Alibaba Cloud) came out Oct 15, 2025; Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct came out Aug 20, 2025. Knowledge cutoff: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct Jul 2024.
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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