Compare / Qwen3.6-Plus vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview

Qwen3.6-Plus vs Gemini 3 Pro Preview

Which is cheaper, which is more capable, and which does better at each kind of work, from 24 results on 5 sources that measured both models.

AlibabaQwen3.6-Plus Released 31 Mar 2026 · $0.33 in · $1.95 out
GoogleGemini 3 Pro Preview Released 18 Nov 2025 · Not on sale
Qwen3.6-Plus wins 81 too close to callGemini 3 Pro Preview wins 15

Of the 24 results both models have, the better value on each. Results whose reported ranges overlap are too close to call.

Results as of 20 October 2026 (catalogue release 2026-10-20-96eb40c3ec63). See also Alibaba vs Google, every model from both labs.

Qwen3.6-Plus or Gemini 3 Pro Preview? The short answer

They score and cost about the same: pick on the results below that match your work.

  • Gemini 3 Pro Preview scores higher on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index: 28.0 against 27.0.
  • Qwen3.6-Plus is newer: released 31 Mar 2026, against 18 Nov 2025 for Gemini 3 Pro Preview.
  • On third-party benchmarks, on the results both models have: Gemini 3 Pro Preview does better for reasoning and knowledge, writing and sticking to the facts.

Head to head

27.0
Intelligence Index
28.0

Every fact side by side

Qwen3.6-PlusGemini 3 Pro Preview
Price per million tokens$0.33 in · $1.95 outNot on sale
Blended (3 in : 1 out)$0.73–
Cheapest host, blended––
Intelligence Index27.028.0
Spring Prompt overall––
Output speed, tokens a second––
Context window1,000,000 tokens–
Released31 Mar 2026 (newer)18 Nov 2025
WeightsClosedClosed
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 65 of 168 79 of 169
Professional workReal tasks from banking, consulting and law, business documents and freelance projects not measured 45 of 52
Reasoning and knowledgeHard questions across science, maths and general knowledge 70 of 202 48 of 203
WritingWhat people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality 55 of 189 21 of 190
Sticking to the factsSummarising without inventing things, and factual answers 81 of 153 69 of 154

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.

MeasureQwen3.6-PlusGemini 3 Pro Preview
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 3 results
Overall · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 16 of 387 measured 1,443 1,485
Overall · Text factualityArena rating, higher is better 84 · 11 of 163 measured 1,438 1,481
Business, management and finance · TextArena rating, higher is better 75 · 28 of 380 measured 1,446 1,474
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 3 results
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Indexindex score, higher is better 66 · 63 of 249 measured 27.0 28.0high reasoning
GPQA Diamond% of questions, higher is better 59 · 35 of 232 measured 88.2% 90.8%high reasoning
Humanity's Last Exam% of questions, higher is better 90 · 46 of 248 measured 27.8% 39.7%high reasoning
OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results
Average% resolved, higher is better 16 · 19 of 34 measured 52.9%openhands 49.0%openhands
Front end (SWE-Bench Multimodal)% resolved, higher is better 20 · 11 of 34 measured 30.9%openhands 36.8%openhands
Greenfield (Commit0)% resolved, higher is better 14 · 14 of 34 measured 25.0%openhands 25.0%openhands
UGI Leaderboard reported by UGI Leaderboard · 3 results
Writing score · UGIscore out of 100, higher is better 49 · 25 of 230 measured 58.2thinking reasoning 66.7high reasoning
Requested-length error · UGI% off the requested word count, lower is better 25 · 176 of 230 measured 8.0%thinking reasoning 33.0%low reasoning
Style adherence · UGIscore from 0 to 1, higher is better 96 · 49 of 230 measured 0.35no reasoning 0.37high reasoning
Vending-Bench 2 reported by Vending-Bench 2 · 1 result
Money after a yearUS dollars, higher is better 25 · 21 of 58 measured $5,115 $5,478
Show all 24 results (11 more)
MeasureQwen3.6-PlusGemini 3 Pro Preview
Arena (formerly LMArena) reported by Arena (formerly LMArena) · 4 results
Creative writing · TextArena rating, higher is better 82 · 8 of 385 measured 1,407 1,484
Expert prompts · TextArena rating, higher is better 68 · 39 of 338 measured 1,476 1,498
Instruction following · TextArena rating, higher is better 74 · 26 of 387 measured 1,435 1,473
Writing, literature and language · TextArena rating, higher is better 76 · 10 of 386 measured 1,423 1,481
Artificial Analysis reported by Artificial Analysis · 4 results
IFBench% of instructions, higher is better 29 · 52 of 195 measured 75.2% 70.4%high reasoning
Long-context reasoning (AA-LCR)% of questions, higher is better 57 · 78 of 239 measured 78.3% 76.0%high reasoning
Terminal-Bench Hard% of tasks, higher is better 23 · 32 of 190 measured 43.9% 41.7%high reasoning
τ²-bench telecom% of tasks, higher is better 7 · 49 of 193 measured 97.7% 87.1%high reasoning
OpenHands Index reported by OpenHands Index · 3 results
Information gathering (GAIA)% resolved, higher is better 11 · 25 of 34 measured 72.1%openhands 44.2%openhands
Issue resolution (SWE-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 17 · 25 of 34 measured 74.2%openhands 70.6%openhands
Testing (SWT-Bench)% resolved, higher is better 21 · 17 of 34 measured 62.1%openhands 68.6%openhands

Quick answers

Is Qwen3.6-Plus better than Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

They score and cost about the same: pick on the results below that match your work.

Which is better for agents and tool use, Qwen3.6-Plus or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Qwen3.6-Plus ranks 65 of 168 models on sale for multi-step tasks with tools: support desks, coding agents, function calls, against 79 for Gemini 3 Pro Preview.

Which is better for reasoning and knowledge, Qwen3.6-Plus or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 48 of 202 models on sale for hard questions across science, maths and general knowledge, against 70 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which is better for writing, Qwen3.6-Plus or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 21 of 189 models on sale for what people prefer in blind comparisons, and judged writing quality, against 55 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Which is better for sticking to the facts, Qwen3.6-Plus or Gemini 3 Pro Preview?

Gemini 3 Pro Preview ranks 69 of 153 models on sale for summarising without inventing things, and factual answers, against 81 for Qwen3.6-Plus.

Run Qwen3.6-Plus and Gemini 3 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.