Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 22 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
GoogleGemini 3.1 Pro Preview Released 19 Feb 2026 · $2.00 in · $12.00 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 2Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview wins 20

Of the 22 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 14 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-14-7d7cf32c3f6d). See also Alibaba vs Google, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview? The short answer

Pick Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 29.7 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 10 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $4.50 per million tokens, 10 times less.
  • Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 29.7 against 19.3.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 19 Feb 2026 for Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
29.7
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$4.50
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,048,576

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$2.00 in · $12.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$4.50
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$4.50 (Google)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index19.329.7
Spring Prompt overall–47
Output speed, tokens a second–135
Context window262,144 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)19 Feb 2026
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.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live not measured 10 of 22
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is not measured 16 of 21
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled not measured 7 of 10
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending not measured 10 of 21
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 117 of 166 62 of 166
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 36 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 94 of 200 26 of 200
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 109 of 189 9 of 189
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 153 35 of 153
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 5 of 25

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.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 15 of 387 measured 1,394 1,487
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 129 · 21 of 163 measured 1,407 1,472
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 23 of 380 measured 1,403 1,477
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 109 · 53 of 244 measured 19.3 29.7
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 5 of 231 measured 84.5% 94.1%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 107 · 17 of 243 measured 21.0% 47.0%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 5 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 72.2low reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 99 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 19.0%low reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 122 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.34low reasoning
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 61 of 104 measured 10.5% 10.4%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 55 of 104 measured 99.8% 99.4%
Show all 22 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 10 of 385 measured 1,342 1,480
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 26 of 338 measured 1,419 1,509
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 17 of 387 measured 1,386 1,480
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 11 of 386 measured 1,363 1,480
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 35 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 73.8%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 46 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 21.4%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 30 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 68.8
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 13 of 195 measured 72.5% 77.1%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 100 · 24 of 234 measured 72.0% 82.0%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 8 of 190 measured 26.5% 53.8%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 16 of 193 measured 89.2% 95.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Pick Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 29.7 against 19.3). Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if cost matters more: it costs 10 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is cheaper: $0.45 against $4.50 per million tokens, 10 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 62 of 166 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 117 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 26 of 200 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 94 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 9 of 189 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 109 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 35 of 153 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 112 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview: 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview on your own prompt

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