Compare / Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 vs GPT-5.6 Luna

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 vs GPT-5.6 Luna

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 20 results on 5 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 Released 25 Jul 2025 · $0.30 in · $3.00 out
OpenAIGPT-5.6 Luna Released 9 Jul 2026 · $0.20 in · $1.20 out
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 wins 01 too close to callGPT-5.6 Luna wins 19

Of the 20 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 9 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-09-dd620e778ac5). See also Alibaba vs OpenAI, every model from both labs.

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna? The short answer

Pick GPT-5.6 Luna: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 37.3 against 12.7) and costs less.

  • GPT-5.6 Luna is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.97 per million tokens, 2.2 times less.
  • GPT-5.6 Luna scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 37.3 against 12.7.
  • GPT-5.6 Luna is newer: released 9 Jul 2026, against 25 Jul 2025 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: GPT-5.6 Luna does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

12.7
Intelligence Index
37.3
$0.97
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.45
131,072
Context window, tokens
1,050,000

Every fact side by side

Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507GPT-5.6 Luna
Price per million tokens$0.30 in · $3.00 out$0.20 in · $1.20 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.97$0.45
Cheapest host, blended$0.75 (Alibaba)$0.45 (Azure)
Cached input, per million–$0.020 cached input
Intelligence Index12.737.3
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window131,072 tokens1,050,000 tokens
Released25 Jul 20259 Jul 2026 (newer)
WeightsOpenClosed
Developer based inChinathe US

Prices are the developer's list price where we have read it, otherwise the typical host on OpenRouter; see every model's price. Intelligence and speed from Artificial Analysis.

Which is better for what

Each model's rank among the models on sale today, for each kind of work, from our own benchmarks and licensed sources. Further right is better; the better rank is in green.

Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 138 of 164 50 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 20 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 117 of 198 37 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 122 of 188 59 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 92 of 152 61 of 152

From our research

Every shared result

Each model's best result on every measure both have, grouped by benchmark, with the setting that produced it. Under each measure, every model that benchmark has measured is a grey tick, best to the right, so you can see where the two sit in the field. The headline measures of each benchmark come first; the rest are under "Show all". Green marks the better value; where a source reports ranges that overlap, neither is marked.

MeasureQwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507GPT-5.6 Luna
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 64 of 387 measured 1,400 1,453xhigh reasoning
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 133 · 47 of 380 measured 1,404 1,463xhigh reasoning
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 133 · 80 of 385 measured 1,371 1,409xhigh reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 147 · 37 of 243 measured 12.7 37.3max reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 114 · 31 of 231 measured 79.0% 91.1%max reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 122 · 43 of 242 measured 15.9% 39.5%max reasoning
SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) reported by SimpleQA Verified (Epoch AI) · 1 result
Correct answers% of questions, higher is better 44 · 42 of 76 measured 40.4% 41.0%max reasoning
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 139 · 67 of 230 measured 32.4 53.7high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 166 · 69 of 230 measured 30.0% 15.0%xhigh reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 194 · 29 of 230 measured 0.31 0.38xhigh reasoning
Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result
Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 55 · 32 of 58 measured $-11.34 $4,095
Show all 20 results (9 more)
MeasureQwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507GPT-5.6 Luna
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 85 · 51 of 338 measured 1,466 1,491xhigh reasoning
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 142 · 63 of 387 measured 1,385 1,445xhigh reasoning
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 64 of 386 measured 1,377 1,433xhigh reasoning
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 6 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 101 · 22 of 130 measured 12.0% 80.9%max reasoning
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 66 · 37 of 112 measured 0.0% 11.6%max reasoning
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 87 · 33 of 121 measured 7.8% 31.1%max reasoning
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 98 · 24 of 131 measured 22.1 71.4max reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 10 of 233 measured 72.0% 83.7%max reasoning
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 74 · 32 of 113 measured 41.4% 53.6%max reasoning

Quick answers

Is Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 better than GPT-5.6 Luna?

Pick GPT-5.6 Luna: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 37.3 against 12.7) and costs less.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna is cheaper: $0.45 against $0.97 per million tokens, 2.2 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna ranks 50 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 138 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna ranks 37 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 117 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna ranks 59 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 122 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna ranks 61 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 92 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 or GPT-5.6 Luna?

GPT-5.6 Luna: 1,050,000 tokens, against 131,072 for Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.

Run Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 and GPT-5.6 Luna on your own prompt

Benchmarks aren't your data. Try both side by side in the playground, with the cost of every answer.