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Model comparison

Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct vs Qwen3.6-27B

Data verified

Head-to-head evidence from 2 shared benchmark results across 1 category. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

No comparison
53.82/100
0 category wins1 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct unranked (Not scored); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-27B share 2 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 3 results are unique to Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct; 52 to Qwen3.6-27B.

Updated July 23, 2026
Shared results
2
Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct only
3
Qwen3.6-27B only
52
Comparable categories
1 / 8

Treat this as a split decision. Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct makes more sense if you would rather avoid the extra latency and token burn of a reasoning model; Qwen3.6-27B is the better fit if knowledge is the priority or you need the larger 262K context window.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 2 shared benchmark results across 1 evidence category; 1 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.

Why this result

Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-27B finish on the same BenchAlign overall score, so this is less about a single winner and more about where the edge shows up. The BenchAlign headline says tie; the benchmark table is where the real choice happens.

Qwen3.6-27B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct 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. Qwen3.6-27B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 128K for Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct.

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 Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-27B
CategoryMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructΔQwen3.6-27B
KnowledgeMellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct40.9Margin 12.4Qwen3.6-27B53.3
AgenticMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B59.3
CodingMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B77.5
MathMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B89.2
MultimodalMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot measuredMarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27B76.7
Inst. FollowingMellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct75.8MarginNo overlapQwen3.6-27BNot measured

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

More
A · Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructB · Qwen3.6-27B
  1. GPQA

    Knowledge
    Source ↗
    A 40.9%B 87.8%
    Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 46.9
    GPQA: Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct scored 40.9%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 87.8%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

MetricMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BComparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokensMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot availableQwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 outputA complete price comparison is not available.
Generation speedtokens per secondMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot availableQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first tokenMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructNot availableQwen3.6-27BNot availableA complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokensMellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct128KQwen3.6-27B262KQwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
BFCL v4Source 44.2%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%Not comparable
Claw-EvalSource 72.4%Not comparable
QwenClawBenchSource 53.4%Not comparable
QwenWebBenchSource 1487Not comparable
AndroidWorldSource 70.3%Not comparable
AA Agentic IndexSource 27.0%Not comparable
τ²-bench resultsSource 94.2%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 32.0%Not comparable
GDPval-AASource 1140Not comparable
Gert LabsSource 54.84%Not comparable
Coding
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
SWE-bench VerifiedSource 77.2%Not comparable
SWE MultilingualSource 71.3%Not comparable
SWE-bench ProSource 53.5%Not comparable
Terminal-Bench 2.0Source 59.3%Not comparable
LiveCodeBenchSource 83.9%Not comparable
NL2RepoSource 36.2%Not comparable
AA Coding IndexSource 53.7%Not comparable
AA-SciCodeSource 39.8%Not comparable
Reasoning
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
AA-LCRSource 68.7%Not comparable
CritPtSource 1.1%Not comparable
KnowledgeQwen3.6-27B wins
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
MMLU-ReduxSource 78.1%93.5%Qwen3.6-27B leads
GPQASource 40.9%87.8%Qwen3.6-27B leads
GPQA-DSource 40.9%Not comparable
MMLU-ProSource 86.2%Not comparable
SuperGPQASource 66%Not comparable
C-EvalSource 91.4%Not comparable
HLESource 24%Not comparable
Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource 37.0%Not comparable
AA-GPQA DiamondSource 84.2%Not comparable
AA-HLESource 21.6%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience IndexSource -19.8%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience AccuracySource 19.2%Not comparable
AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource 48.3%Not comparable
Math
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
HMMT Feb 2025Source 93.8%Not comparable
HMMT Nov 2025Source 90.7%Not comparable
HMMT Feb 2026Source 84.3%Not comparable
MMAnswerBenchSource 80.8%Not comparable
AIME26Source 94.1%Not comparable
Multimodal
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
MMMUSource 82.9%Not comparable
MMMU-ProSource 75.8%Not comparable
RealWorldQASource 84.1%Not comparable
DynaMathSource 85.6%Not comparable
MStarSource 81.4%Not comparable
SimpleVQASource 56.1%Not comparable
CharXivSource 78.4%Not comparable
CC-OCRSource 81.2%Not comparable
CountBenchSource 97.8%Not comparable
RefCOCO (avg)Source 92.5%Not comparable
ERQASource 62.5%Not comparable
Video-MME (with subtitle)Source 87.7%Not comparable
VideoMMMUSource 84.4%Not comparable
MLVU (M-Avg)Source 86.6%Not comparable
V*Source 94.7%Not comparable
AA-MMMU-ProSource 74.6%Not comparable
Inst. Following
BenchmarkMellum2-12B-A2.5B-InstructQwen3.6-27BResult
IFEvalSource 75.8%Not comparable
AA-IFBenchSource 67.6%Not comparable
Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct or Qwen3.6-27B?

Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct and Qwen3.6-27B are tied on the BenchAlign overall score, so the right pick depends on which category matters most for your use case.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 53.3 versus 40.9. Inside this category, GPQA is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.

Self-host vs API cost

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

Mellum2-12B-A2.5B-Instruct
API / mo$0
Self-host / moNot listed
Break-even
Proprietary model — self-hosting not applicable.
Qwen3.6-27B
API / mo$0
Self-host / mo$429
Break-even
Model the full break-even

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Last updated: July 23, 2026

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