Model comparison

DeepSeek V3 vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Data verified July 15, 2026

Head-to-head evidence from 20 shared benchmark results across 5 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

DeepSeek V3

DeepSeek

44.84/100

Margin

6.5pts

winning →

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Alibaba

51.36/100

1 category wins2 category wins

Verified leaderboard positions: DeepSeek V3 unranked; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B #31

BenchAlign evidence: DeepSeek V3 supported; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B estimated. Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. DeepSeek V3 and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B share 20 comparable benchmark results. 3 of 8 categories are comparable. 3 results are unique to DeepSeek V3; 38 to Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Updated July 15, 2026

Shared results: 20
DeepSeek V3 only: 3
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B only: 38
Comparable categories: 3 / 8

Pick Qwen3.6-35B-A3B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. DeepSeek V3 only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 20 shared benchmark results across 5 evidence categories; 3 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 59 to 38. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B's sharpest advantage is in mathematics, where it averages 88.2 against 1.7. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is LiveCodeBench, 37.6% to 80.4%. DeepSeek V3 does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is the reasoning model in the pair, while DeepSeek V3 is not. That usually helps on harder chain-of-thought-heavy tests, but it can also mean more latency and more token spend in real use. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 128K for DeepSeek V3.

Category breakdown

Exact category averages are shown below. Not measured means BenchLM does not have enough sourced public coverage for that model and category.

Category scores and score margins for DeepSeek V3 and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Category	DeepSeek V3	Δ	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Math	DeepSeek V31.7	Margin→ 86.5	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B88.2
Coding	DeepSeek V338.9	Margin→ 34.9	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B73.8
Knowledge	DeepSeek V372.8	Margin← 21.0	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.8
Agentic	DeepSeek V3Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B51.5
Multimodal	DeepSeek V3Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B76.3
Inst. Following	DeepSeek V386.1	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.

A · DeepSeek V3B · Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

LiveCodeBench
Coding
Source ↗
A 37.6%B 80.4%
Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 42.8
LiveCodeBench: DeepSeek V3 scored 37.6%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 80.4%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.
SWE-bench Verified
Coding
Source ↗
A 42%B 73.4%
Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 31.4
SWE-bench Verified: DeepSeek V3 scored 42%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 73.4%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.
GPQA
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 59.1%B 86%
Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 26.9
GPQA: DeepSeek V3 scored 59.1%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 86%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.
MMLU-Pro
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 75.9%B 85.2%
Winner: Qwen3.6-35B-A3BΔ 9.3
MMLU-Pro: DeepSeek V3 scored 75.9%; Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scored 85.2%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

Runtime and commercial metrics are compared only when both models have a complete sourced value.

Metric	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens	DeepSeek V3$0.27 input / $1.1 output	Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available	A complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per second	DeepSeek V3Not available	Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available	A complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first token	DeepSeek V3Not available	Qwen3.6-35B-A3BNot available	A complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokens	DeepSeek V3128K	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B262K	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic

15 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
AA Agentic IndexSource	1.6%	21.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
τ²-bench resultsSource	22.8%	95.3%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
GDPval-AASource	0.0%	27.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
GDPval-AASource	217	1049	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source	—	51.5%	Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource	—	68.7%	Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource	—	52.6%	Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource	—	1397	Not comparable
τ³-bench resultsSource	—	67.2%	Not comparable
VITA-BenchSource	—	35.6%	Not comparable
DeepPlanningSource	—	25.9%	Not comparable
ToolathlonSource	—	26.9%	Not comparable
MCP AtlasSource	—	62.8%	Not comparable
WideResearchSource	—	60.1%	Not comparable
Gert LabsSource	—	42.65%	Not comparable

CodingQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins

9 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
LiveCodeBenchSource	37.6%	80.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
SWE-bench VerifiedSource	42%	73.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA Coding IndexSource	23.0%	41.9%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
Terminal-Bench HardSource	6.8%	34.8%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA-SciCodeSource	35.4%	35.8%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
SWE MultilingualSource	—	67.2%	Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource	—	49.5%	Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source	—	51.5%	Not comparable
NL2RepoSource	—	29.4%	Not comparable

Reasoning

2 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
AA-LCRSource	29.0%	63.7%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
CritPtSource	0.0%	0.3%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads

KnowledgeDeepSeek V3 wins

11 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
GPQASource	59.1%	86%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
MMLU-ProSource	75.9%	85.2%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource	14.2%	31.6%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA-GPQA DiamondSource	55.7%	84.1%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA-HLESource	3.6%	20.2%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA-Omniscience IndexSource	-41.3%	-21.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource	25.4%	18.9%	DeepSeek V3 leads
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource	89.4%	49.7%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads
SuperGPQASource	—	64.7%	Not comparable
C-EvalSource	—	90%	Not comparable
HLESource	—	21.4%	Not comparable

MathQwen3.6-35B-A3B wins

6 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
FrontierMath v2 (Tiers 1-3)Source	1.724%	—	Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2025Source	—	90.7%	Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source	—	89.1%	Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source	—	83.6%	Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource	—	78.9%	Not comparable
AIME26Source	—	92.7%	Not comparable

Multimodal

16 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
Design Arena WebsiteSource	1154	—	Not comparable
MMMUSource	—	81.7%	Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource	—	75.3%	Not comparable
RealWorldQASource	—	85.3%	Not comparable
OmniDocBench 1.5Source	—	89.9%	Not comparable
CharXivSource	—	78%	Not comparable
SimpleVQASource	—	58.9%	Not comparable
CC-OCRSource	—	81.9%	Not comparable
AI2D_TESTSource	—	92.7%	Not comparable
RefCOCO (avg)Source	—	92.0%	Not comparable
ODINW13Source	—	50.8%	Not comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)Source	—	86.6%	Not comparable
Video-MME (w/o subtitle)Source	—	82.5%	Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource	—	83.7%	Not comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)Source	—	86.2%	Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource	—	75.0%	Not comparable

Inst. Following

2 benchmarks

Benchmark	DeepSeek V3	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B	Result
IFEvalSource	86.1%	—	Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource	34.8%	64.4%	Qwen3.6-35B-A3B leads

Frequently Asked Questions (4)

Which is better, DeepSeek V3 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 59 to 38. The biggest single separator in this matchup is LiveCodeBench, where the scores are 37.6% and 80.4%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, DeepSeek V3 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

DeepSeek V3 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 72.8 versus 51.8. Inside this category, AA-Omniscience Hallucination Rate is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for coding, DeepSeek V3 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 73.8 versus 38.9. Inside this category, LiveCodeBench is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Which is better for math, DeepSeek V3 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has the edge for math in this comparison, averaging 88.2 versus 1.7. DeepSeek V3 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.

Self-host vs API cost

Estimates at 50,000 req/day · 1000 tokens/req average.

DeepSeek V3

API / mo$1,028

Self-host / mo$18,221

Break-even1.2B/day

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

API / mo$0

Self-host / moNot listed

Break-even—

Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.

Model the full break-even

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Last updated: July 15, 2026

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