Compare / Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 25 results on 4 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.5-397B-A17B Released 13 Feb 2026 · $0.55 in · $3.50 out
GoogleGemini 3.1 Pro Preview Released 19 Feb 2026 · $2.00 in · $12.00 out
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B wins 21 too close to callGemini 3.1 Pro Preview wins 22

Of the 25 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.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 3.5 times less per token.

  • Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $4.50 per million tokens, 3.5 times less.
  • Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 29.7 against 21.4.
  • Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview is newer: released 19 Feb 2026, against 13 Feb 2026 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview does better for agents and tool use, professional work, reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

21.4
Intelligence Index
29.7
$1.29
Price per million tokens, blendedlower is better
$4.50
90
Output speed, tokens a second
120
262,144
Context window, tokens
1,048,576

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.5-397B-A17BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Price per million tokens$0.55 in · $3.50 out$2.00 in · $12.00 out
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$1.29$4.50
Cheapest host, blended$0.88 (Alibaba)$4.50 (Google)
Cached input, per million–$0.20 cached input
Intelligence Index21.429.7
Spring Prompt overall–49
Output speed, tokens a second90120
Context window262,144 tokens1,048,576 tokens
Released13 Feb 202619 Feb 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.

Product listingsTurning a sparse product feed and photos into listings that can go live not measured 8 of 20
Decks from an analysisTurning a finished analysis into a deck you could present as it is not measured 13 of 19
User surveysPlanning a user survey and reading its results without being misled not measured 5 of 8
Marketing planningPlanning a year of ad spend without overspending not measured 9 of 19
Agents and tool useMulti-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls 70 of 164 61 of 164
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects 48 of 51 36 of 51
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 73 of 198 24 of 198
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 69 of 188 9 of 188
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 75 of 152 34 of 152
Speed under pressureGood decisions against a real clock (fast chess) not measured 5 of 23

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.

MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
APEX-Agents reported by APEX-Agents · 1 result
Tasks passed% of tasks, higher is better 36 · 33 of 37 measured 24.9% 35.3%
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 15 of 387 measured 1,442 1,487
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 70 · 21 of 163 measured 1,445 1,472
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 73 · 23 of 380 measured 1,446 1,477
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 97 · 52 of 243 measured 21.4no reasoning 29.7
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 53 · 5 of 231 measured 89.3% 94.1%
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 77 · 16 of 242 measured 29.0% 47.0%
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 77 · 5 of 230 measured 50.1no reasoning 72.2low reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 134 · 99 of 230 measured 23.0%no reasoning 19.0%low reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 164 · 122 of 230 measured 0.33no reasoning 0.34low reasoning
Show all 25 results (15 more)
MeasureQwen3.5-397B-A17BGemini 3.1 Pro Preview
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 86 · 10 of 385 measured 1,405 1,480
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 67 · 26 of 338 measured 1,477 1,509
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 78 · 17 of 387 measured 1,434 1,480
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 80 · 11 of 386 measured 1,421 1,480
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 11 results
Terminal-Bench 2.1% of tasks, higher is better 61 · 35 of 130 measured 51.3% 73.8%
Terminal-Bench 4.0% of tasks, higher is better 66 · 45 of 112 measured 0.0% 4.0%
τ-bench banking% of tasks, higher is better 64 · 46 of 121 measured 13.4% 21.4%
Artificial Analysis Coding Indexindex score, higher is better 61 · 30 of 131 measured 48.2 68.8
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 8 · 13 of 195 measured 78.8% 77.1%
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 66 · 24 of 233 measured 77.3% 82.0%
Output speedtokens per second, higher is better 42 · 27 of 74 measured 90.0 120
SciCode% of problems, higher is better 66 · 12 of 113 measured 44.8% 58.7%
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 34 · 8 of 190 measured 40.9% 53.8%
Time to first answer tokenseconds, lower is better 34 · 53 of 74 measured 1.59no reasoning 16.5
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 16 · 16 of 193 measured 95.6% 95.6%

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 21.4). Pick Qwen3.5-397B-A17B if cost matters more: it costs 3.5 times less per token.

Which is cheaper, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is cheaper: $1.29 against $4.50 per million tokens, 3.5 times less.

Which is faster, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview writes about 120 tokens a second on its usual API, against 90 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B (Artificial Analysis).

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 61 of 164 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 70 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for professional work, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 36 of 51 models on sale for real tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects, against 48 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 24 of 198 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 73 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview ranks 9 of 188 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 69 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which has the bigger context window, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B or Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview: 1,048,576 tokens, against 262,144 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Run Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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.