Head-to-head comparison across 4benchmark categories. Overall scores shown here use BenchLM's provisional ranking lane.
MAI-Thinking-1
65
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
56
Verified leaderboard positions: MAI-Thinking-1 #23 · Qwen3.5-35B-A3B #25
Pick MAI-Thinking-1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
Agentic
+4.6 difference
Coding
+12.6 difference
Knowledge
+9.4 difference
Inst. Following
+6.9 difference
MAI-Thinking-1
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
N/A
$0 / $0
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
256K
262K
Pick MAI-Thinking-1 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.
MAI-Thinking-1 is clearly ahead on the provisional aggregate, 65 to 56. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
MAI-Thinking-1's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 71 against 58.4. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is Terminal-Bench 2.0, 46% to 40.5%. Qwen3.5-35B-A3B does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 256K for MAI-Thinking-1.
MAI-Thinking-1 is ahead on BenchLM's provisional leaderboard, 65 to 56. The biggest single separator in this matchup is Terminal-Bench 2.0, where the scores are 46% and 40.5%.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 79.3 versus 69.9. Inside this category, MMLU-Pro is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
MAI-Thinking-1 has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 71 versus 58.4. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for agentic tasks in this comparison, averaging 50.6 versus 46. Inside this category, Terminal-Bench 2.0 is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B has the edge for instruction following in this comparison, averaging 91.9 versus 85. MAI-Thinking-1 stays close enough that the answer can still flip depending on your workload.
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