Model comparison
o3-mini vs Qwen3.6-27B
Head-to-head evidence from 7 shared benchmark results across 3 categories. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.
Public leaderboard positions: o3-mini #136 (Supported); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.
Evidence parity. o3-mini and Qwen3.6-27B share 7 comparable benchmark results. 2 of 8 categories are comparable. 3 results are unique to o3-mini; 47 to Qwen3.6-27B.
Updated July 21, 2026- Shared results
- 7
- o3-mini only
- 3
- Qwen3.6-27B only
- 47
- Comparable categories
- 2 / 8
Pick Qwen3.6-27B if you want the stronger benchmark profile. o3-mini only becomes the better choice if knowledge is the priority.
Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 7 shared benchmark results across 3 evidence categories; 2 of 8 categories currently have scoreable aggregates for both models. Treat the verdict as directional until coverage is more balanced.
Why this result
Qwen3.6-27B is clearly ahead on the BenchAlign aggregate, 53.82 to 47.41. The gap is large enough that you do not need to squint at the spreadsheet to see the difference.
Qwen3.6-27B's sharpest advantage is in coding, where it averages 77.5 against 49.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is SWE-bench Verified, 49.3% to 77.2%. o3-mini does hit back in knowledge, so the answer changes if that is the part of the workload you care about most.
o3-mini is also the more expensive model on tokens at $1.10 input / $4.40 output per 1M tokens, versus $0.00 input / $0.00 output per 1M tokens for Qwen3.6-27B. That is roughly Infinityx on output cost alone. Qwen3.6-27B gives you the larger context window at 262K, compared with 200K for o3-mini.
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 | o3-mini | Δ | Qwen3.6-27B |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coding | o3-mini49.3 | Margin→ 28.2 | Qwen3.6-27B77.5 |
| Knowledge | o3-mini77.2 | Margin← 23.9 | Qwen3.6-27B53.3 |
| Agentic | o3-miniNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27B59.3 |
| Math | o3-miniNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27B89.2 |
| Multimodal | o3-miniNot measured | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27B76.7 |
| Inst. Following | o3-mini93.9 | MarginNo overlap | Qwen3.6-27BNot measured |
Decisive benchmark drivers
The largest measured benchmark gaps in this matchup, with exact reported values.
More
- Source ↗
SWE-bench Verified
CodingA 49.3%B 77.2%Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 27.9SWE-bench Verified: o3-mini scored 49.3%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 77.2%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark. - Source ↗
GPQA
KnowledgeA 77.2%B 87.8%Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 10.6GPQA: o3-mini scored 77.2%; 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.
| Metric | o3-mini | Qwen3.6-27B | Comparison |
|---|---|---|---|
| Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens | o3-mini$1.1 input / $4.4 output | Qwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 output | Qwen3.6-27B has the lower combined listed price. |
| Generation speedtokens per second | o3-mini160 tok/s | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | A complete speed comparison is not available. |
| First-answer latencyseconds to first token | o3-mini7.12 s | Qwen3.6-27BNot available | A complete latency comparison is not available. |
| Context windowmaximum listed tokens | o3-mini200K | Qwen3.6-27B262K | Qwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window. |
Benchmark Deep Dive
Agentic10 benchmarks
| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| τ²-bench resultsSource | 28.7% | 94.2% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0Source | — | 59.3% | Not comparable |
| Claw-EvalSource | — | 72.4% | Not comparable |
| QwenClawBenchSource | — | 53.4% | Not comparable |
| QwenWebBenchSource | — | 1487 | Not comparable |
| AndroidWorldSource | — | 70.3% | Not comparable |
| AA Agentic IndexSource | — | 27.0% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 32.0% | Not comparable |
| GDPval-AASource | — | 1140 | Not comparable |
| Gert LabsSource | — | 54.84% | Not comparable |
CodingQwen3.6-27B wins8 benchmarks
| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| SWE-bench VerifiedSource | 49.3% | 77.2% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| AA-SciCodeSource | 39.9% | 39.8% | o3-mini leads |
| 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 |
Reasoning2 benchmarks
Knowledgeo3-mini wins13 benchmarks
| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| MMLUSource | 86.9% | — | Not comparable |
| GPQASource | 77.2% | 87.8% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| Artificial Analysis Intelligence IndexSource | 19.0% | 37.0% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| AA-GPQA DiamondSource | 74.8% | 84.2% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| AA-HLESource | 8.7% | 21.6% | Qwen3.6-27B leads |
| MMLU-ProSource | — | 86.2% | Not comparable |
| MMLU-ReduxSource | — | 93.5% | Not comparable |
| SuperGPQASource | — | 66% | Not comparable |
| C-EvalSource | — | 91.4% | Not comparable |
| HLESource | — | 24% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience IndexSource | — | -19.8% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience AccuracySource | — | 19.2% | Not comparable |
| AA-Omniscience Hallucination RateSource | — | 48.3% | Not comparable |
Math6 benchmarks
Multimodal16 benchmarks
| Benchmark | o3-mini | Qwen3.6-27B | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
Frequently Asked Questions (3)
Which is better, o3-mini or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 53.82 to 47.41. The biggest single separator in this matchup is SWE-bench Verified, where the scores are 49.3% and 77.2%.
Which is better for knowledge tasks, o3-mini or Qwen3.6-27B?
o3-mini has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 77.2 versus 53.3. Inside this category, Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index is the benchmark that creates the most daylight between them.
Which is better for coding, o3-mini or Qwen3.6-27B?
Qwen3.6-27B has the edge for coding in this comparison, averaging 77.5 versus 49.3. Inside this category, SWE-bench Verified 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.
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