Compare / Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Gemma 3 12B

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B vs Gemma 3 12B

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 21 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-35B-A3B Released 24 Feb 2026 · $0.16 in · $1.30 out
GoogleGemma 3 12B Released 11 Mar 2025 · $0.050 in · $0.15 out
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B wins 172 too close to callGemma 3 12B wins 2

Of the 21 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 Google, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B? The short answer

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 3.8). Pick Gemma 3 12B if cost matters more: it costs 6.0 times less per token.

  • Gemma 3 12B is cheaper: $0.075 against $0.45 per million tokens, 6.0 times less.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 19.3 against 3.8.
  • Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is newer: released 24 Feb 2026, against 11 Mar 2025 for Gemma 3 12B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does better for agents and tool use, reasoning and knowledge and writing; Gemma 3 12B for sticking to the facts.

Head to head

19.3
Intelligence Index
3.8
$0.45
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$0.075
262,144
Context window, tokens
131,072

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-35B-A3BGemma 3 12B
Price per million tokens$0.16 in · $1.30 out$0.050 in · $0.15 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.45$0.075
Cheapest host, blended$0.25 (Darkbloom, FP4)$0.075 (DeepInfra, BF16)
Intelligence Index19.33.8
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window262,144 tokens131,072 tokens
Released24 Feb 2026 (newer)11 Mar 2025
WeightsOpenOpen
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 116 of 164 149 of 164
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 92 of 198 198 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 108 of 188 149 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 112 of 152 5 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.

MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BGemma 3 12B
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 147 · 204 of 387 measured 1,394 1,342
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 139 · 155 of 380 measured 1,403 1,386
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 163 · 173 of 385 measured 1,342 1,333
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 108 · 243 of 243 measured 19.3 3.8
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 84 · 224 of 231 measured 84.5% 34.9%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 106 · 213 of 242 measured 21.0% 4.2%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 97 · 156 of 230 measured 42.6think-prefill reasoning 29.9
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 83 · 33 of 230 measured 17.0%no reasoning 9.0%
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 151 · 212 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.29
Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard reported by Vectara Hallucination Leaderboard · 2 results
Hallucination rate · Vectara% of summaries, lower is better 62 · 7 of 104 measured 10.5% 4.4%
Answer rate · Vectara% of documents, higher is better 31 · 82 of 104 measured 99.8% 97.4%
Show all 21 results (10 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-35B-A3BGemma 3 12B
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 134 · 257 of 338 measured 1,419 1,274
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 140 · 207 of 387 measured 1,386 1,321
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 155 · 208 of 386 measured 1,363 1,313
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 7 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 72 · 129 of 130 measured 40.8%no reasoning 0.0%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 107 · 119 of 121 measured 4.9%no reasoning 0.8%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 79 · 126 of 131 measured 37.0no reasoning 5.8
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 39 · 151 of 195 measured 72.5% 36.7%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 99 · 216 of 233 measured 72.0% 8.3%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 74 · 180 of 190 measured 26.5% 0.8%
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 45 · 183 of 193 measured 89.2% 10.8%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-35B-A3B better than Gemma 3 12B?

Pick Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if quality matters most: it scores higher (Intelligence Index 19.3 against 3.8). Pick Gemma 3 12B if cost matters more: it costs 6.0 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B?

Gemma 3 12B is cheaper: $0.075 against $0.45 per million tokens, 6.0 times less.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 116 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 149 for Gemma 3 12B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 92 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 198 for Gemma 3 12B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B ranks 108 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 149 for Gemma 3 12B.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.5-35B-A3B or Gemma 3 12B?

Gemma 3 12B ranks 5 of 152 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 Gemma 3 12B?

Qwen3.5-35B-A3B: 262,144 tokens, against 131,072 for Gemma 3 12B.

Run Qwen3.5-35B-A3B and Gemma 3 12B on your own prompt

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