Compare / Qwen3.5-27B vs GPT-4.1

Qwen3.5-27B vs GPT-4.1

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 19 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-27B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.27 in · $2.16 out
OpenAIGPT-4.1 Released 14 Apr 2025 · $2.00 in · $8.00 out
Qwen3.5-27B wins 103 too close to callGPT-4.1 wins 6

Of the 19 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.

Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 12.7) and costs less.

  • Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $3.50 per million tokens, 4.7 times less.
  • Qwen3.5-27B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 22.9 against 12.7.
  • Qwen3.5-27B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 14 Apr 2025 for GPT-4.1.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-27B does better for reasoning and knowledge; GPT-4.1 for writing.

Head to head

22.9
Intelligence Index
12.7
$0.74
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$3.50
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,047,576

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-27BGPT-4.1
Price per million tokens$0.27 in · $2.16 out$2.00 in · $8.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.74$3.50
Cheapest host, blended$0.54 (Alibaba)$3.50 (Azure)
Intelligence Index22.912.7
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens1,047,576 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)14 Apr 2025
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 145 of 164 41 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 82 of 198 151 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 98 of 188 56 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 121 of 152 93 of 152

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.

MeasureQwen3.5-27BGPT-4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 129 · 119 of 387 measured 1,409 1,415
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 112 · 128 of 163 measured 1,420 1,408
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 128 · 115 of 380 measured 1,408 1,415
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 86 · 147 of 243 measured 22.9 12.7
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 74 · 169 of 231 measured 85.8% 66.6%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 95 · 213 of 242 measured 23.9% 4.2%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 99 · 19 of 230 measured 42.4think-prefill reasoning 67.5
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 49 · 17 of 230 measured 11.0%think-prefill reasoning 6.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 147 · 159 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.33
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 80 · 21 of 104 measured 12.1% 5.6%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 17 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.9%
Show all 19 results (8 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-27BGPT-4.1
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 145 · 90 of 385 measured 1,358 1,403
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 112 · 147 of 338 measured 1,441 1,405
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 122 · 118 of 387 measured 1,401 1,403
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 135 · 98 of 386 measured 1,380 1,405
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 24 · 122 of 195 measured 75.6% 43.0%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 63 · 118 of 233 measured 77.7% 68.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 116 of 190 measured 32.6% 13.6%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 28 · 105 of 193 measured 93.9% 47.1%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-27B better than GPT-4.1?

Pick Qwen3.5-27B: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 22.9 against 12.7) and costs less.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

Qwen3.5-27B is cheaper: $0.74 against $3.50 per million tokens, 4.7 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

GPT-4.1 ranks 41 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 145 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

Qwen3.5-27B ranks 82 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 151 for GPT-4.1.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

GPT-4.1 ranks 56 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 98 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

GPT-4.1 ranks 93 of 152 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 121 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-27B or GPT-4.1?

GPT-4.1: 1,047,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-27B.

Run Qwen3.5-27B and GPT-4.1 on your own prompt

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