ZMIME
Comparison · 2 models · Updated Nov 2, 2026

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Qwen3.5 Flash

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

  1. ByteDance Seed

    Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct

    Released Aug 20, 2025

    60/100
    • ECI—
    • Price—
    • Context524K
    Full specs Remove Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct
  2. 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

  3. Add a model

    Make it a three-way comparison.

01 — Verdict

Qwen3.5 Flash is our pick

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against 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% · Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%
  • Lowest priceQwen3.5 FlashQwen3.5 Flash $0.175 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 tokens
  • Widest inputsQwen3.5 FlashSeed-OSS-36B-Instruct: Text · Qwen3.5 Flash: Text, Images, Video
  • Self-hostingSeed-OSS-36B-InstructPublishes downloadable weights (Apache 2.0)
How the score is built
MeasureWeightSeed-OSS-36B-InstructQwen3.5 Flash
CapabilityShared benchmarks67%7083
Inputs & features20%3580
Context window13%4960
Overall100%60/10080/100

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.

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct vs Qwen3.5 Flash specifications side by side
SpecificationSeed-OSS-36B-InstructByteDance SeedQwen3.5 FlashAlibaba (Qwen)
Capability
Capabilities Index (ECI)—143.6
ECI rank—#95 of 165
GPQA DiamondGraduate-level science questions71.5%82.3% (best)
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Research-level mathematics—18.3%
OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025Competition mathematics67.5%84.4% (best)
SimpleQA VerifiedShort factual questions—20.3%
Price per million tokens
Input—$0.10
Output—$0.40
Cached input—$0.01
Blended (3:1)—$0.175
Long-context rate—Same rate
Price source—Official Alibaba API
Limits
Context window524,288 tokens1,000,000 tokens (best)
Max output524,288 tokens (best)65,536 tokens
Inputs and features
TextYesYes
ImagesNoYes
PDFsNoNo
AudioNoNo
VideoNoYes
ReasoningYesYes
Tool callingYesYes
Structured outputNoYes
Availability
WeightsOpenApache 2.0Proprietary
API model ID—qwen3.5-flash
API providers—9
ReleasedAug 20, 2025Feb 23, 2026
Knowledge cutoffJul 2024—
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.

  • Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct—
  • Qwen3.5 Flash$1.80
04 — Questions

Which should you choose?

Which is better: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is the better all-round choice, scoring 80/100 against 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, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct or Qwen3.5 Flash?

Qwen3.5 Flash is cheaper at $0.10 input / $0.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). . At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.175 per million tokens for Qwen3.5 Flash versus . 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% and Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 69.5%. On individual benchmarks: GPQA Diamond — Qwen3.5 Flash 82.3%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 71.5%; OTIS Mock AIME 2024–2025 — Qwen3.5 Flash 84.4%, Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 67.5%.

Which is better for coding?

There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct and Qwen3.5 Flash 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 524,288 for Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct. Maximum output per response: Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct up to 524,288, Qwen3.5 Flash up to 65,536 tokens.

Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct accepts text; Qwen3.5 Flash accepts text, images and video. Qwen3.5 Flash handles the widest range of inputs.

Are any of these open source?

Seed-OSS-36B-Instruct 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. 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.

05 — Keep comparing

Related comparisons