solar-mini vs Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
solar-mini comes out ahead, 50 to 27 on our weighted score, and it is the cheaper option too.
- Our pick
Upstagesolar-mini
50/100- ECI—
- Price$0.15 / $0.15
- Context33K
Alibaba (Qwen)Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)
27/100- ECI—
- Price$0.50 / $1.40
- Context8K
Add a model
Make it a three-way comparison.
solar-mini is our pick
solar-mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 50/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (27). It leads on price and inputs & features. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. 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 pricesolar-minisolar-mini $0.15 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) $0.725 per 1M tokens (3:1 blend)
- Longest contextsolar-minisolar-mini 32,768 · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) 8,192 tokens
- Widest inputsSame inputssolar-mini: Text · Qwen Plus Character (Japanese): Text
- Self-hostingNo open weightsBoth are available only through APIs
| Measure | Weight | solar-mini | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 50% | 85 | 54 |
| Inputs & features | 30% | 25 | 0 |
| Context window | 20% | 0 | 0 |
| Overall | 100% | 50/100 | 27/100 |
Left out because at least one model lacks the data: capability. The remaining weights were rescaled.
Every spec in one table
Highlighted cells lead their row. Dashes mean the data is not published.
| Specification | solar-miniUpstage | Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)Alibaba (Qwen) |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | ||
| Capabilities Index (ECI) | — | — |
| ECI rank | — | — |
| Price per million tokens | ||
| Input | $0.15 (best) | $0.50 |
| Output | $0.15 (best) | $1.40 |
| Cached input | — | — |
| Blended (3:1) | $0.15 (best) | $0.725 |
| Long-context rate | Same rate | Same rate |
| Price source | Official Upstage API | Official Alibaba API |
| Limits | ||
| Context window | 32,768 tokens (best) | 8,192 tokens |
| Max output | 4,096 tokens (best) | 512 tokens |
| Inputs and features | ||
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | No | No |
| PDFs | No | No |
| Audio | No | No |
| Video | No | No |
| Reasoning | No | No |
| Tool calling | Yes | No |
| Structured output | No | No |
| Availability | ||
| Weights | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| API model ID | solar-mini | qwen-plus-character-ja |
| API providers | 1 | 1 |
| Released | Jun 12, 2024 | Jan 2024 |
| Knowledge cutoff | Sep 2024 | Apr 2024 |
What would a month cost?
Enter your expected volume in millions of tokens. List prices only; caching and batch discounts would lower these.
- solar-mini$1.80
- Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)$7.80
Which should you choose?
Which is better: solar-mini or Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)?
solar-mini is the better all-round choice, scoring 50/100 against Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (27). It leads on price and inputs & features. The score weighs price 50%, inputs & features 30%, context window 20%. None of the shared benchmarks cover every model here yet, so capability is left out of this verdict.
Which is cheaper, solar-mini or Qwen Plus Character (Japanese)?
solar-mini is cheaper at $0.15 input / $0.15 output per million tokens (official Upstage API price). Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) costs $0.50 input / $1.40 output per million tokens (official Alibaba API price). At a typical mix of three input tokens to one output token, that is $0.15 per million tokens for solar-mini versus $0.725 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) (4.8× as much).
Which scores higher on benchmarks?
There is no independent benchmark that covers both models yet. solar-mini has not been scored yet and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) has not been scored yet.
Which is better for coding?
There are no published SWE-bench Verified results for solar-mini and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) yet, so there is no like-for-like coding score. Test both on a sample of your own tasks. Note that Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) does not support tool calling, which most coding agents need.
Which has the bigger context window?
solar-mini has the largest context window at 32,768 tokens, against 8,192 for Qwen Plus Character (Japanese). Maximum output per response: solar-mini up to 4,096, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) up to 512 tokens.
Which can read images, PDFs, audio or video?
solar-mini accepts text; Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) accepts text. They handle the same number of input types.
Are any of these open source?
No. solar-mini and Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) are proprietary and only available through APIs and apps.
Which is newer?
solar-mini is the newest, released Jun 12, 2024. Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) came out Jan 2024. Knowledge cutoff: solar-mini Sep 2024, Qwen Plus Character (Japanese) Apr 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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