Model comparison

Qwen3 235B 2507 vs Qwen3.6-27B

Data verified July 21, 2026

Head-to-head evidence from 3 shared benchmark results across 1 category. Overall scores shown here use the public BenchAlign v5 ranking lane.

Qwen3 235B 2507

Alibaba

56.02/100

Margin

2.2pts

← winning

Qwen3.6-27B

Alibaba

53.82/100

1 category wins0 category wins

Public leaderboard positions: Qwen3 235B 2507 #78 (Estimated); Qwen3.6-27B #93 (Estimated). Intervals and evidence labels describe ranking uncertainty, not a guarantee for a specific workload.

Evidence parity. Qwen3 235B 2507 and Qwen3.6-27B share 3 comparable benchmark results. 1 of 8 categories are comparable. 1 result is unique to Qwen3 235B 2507; 51 to Qwen3.6-27B.

Updated July 21, 2026

Shared results: 3
Qwen3 235B 2507 only: 1
Qwen3.6-27B only: 51
Comparable categories: 1 / 8

Pick Qwen3 235B 2507 if you want the stronger benchmark profile. Qwen3.6-27B only becomes the better choice if you need the larger 262K context window or you want the stronger reasoning-first profile.

Confidence note. This is a partial-evidence comparison with 3 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

Qwen3 235B 2507 has the cleaner BenchAlign overall profile here, landing at 56.02 versus 53.82. It is a real lead, but still close enough that category-level strengths matter more than the headline number.

Qwen3 235B 2507's sharpest advantage is in knowledge, where it averages 78.9 against 53.3. The single biggest benchmark swing on the page is GPQA, 77.5% to 87.8%.

Qwen3.6-27B is the reasoning model in the pair, while Qwen3 235B 2507 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 Qwen3 235B 2507.

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 Qwen3 235B 2507 and Qwen3.6-27B
Category	Qwen3 235B 2507	Δ	Qwen3.6-27B
Knowledge	Qwen3 235B 250778.9	Margin← 25.6	Qwen3.6-27B53.3
Agentic	Qwen3 235B 2507Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-27B59.3
Coding	Qwen3 235B 2507Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-27B77.5
Math	Qwen3 235B 2507Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-27B89.2
Multilingual	Qwen3 235B 250779.4	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-27BNot measured
Multimodal	Qwen3 235B 2507Not measured	MarginNo overlap	Qwen3.6-27B76.7

Decisive benchmark drivers

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

A · Qwen3 235B 2507B · Qwen3.6-27B

GPQA
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 77.5%B 87.8%
Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 10.3
GPQA: Qwen3 235B 2507 scored 77.5%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 87.8%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.
SuperGPQA
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 62.6%B 66%
Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 3.4
SuperGPQA: Qwen3 235B 2507 scored 62.6%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 66%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.
MMLU-Pro
Knowledge
Source ↗
A 83%B 86.2%
Winner: Qwen3.6-27BΔ 3.2
MMLU-Pro: Qwen3 235B 2507 scored 83%; Qwen3.6-27B scored 86.2%. Qwen3.6-27B wins this benchmark.

Operational comparison

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

Metric	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Comparison
Input / output priceUSD per 1M tokens	Qwen3 235B 2507$0 input / $0 output	Qwen3.6-27B$0 input / $0 output	Listed prices are equal.
Generation speedtokens per second	Qwen3 235B 2507Not available	Qwen3.6-27BNot available	A complete speed comparison is not available.
First-answer latencyseconds to first token	Qwen3 235B 2507Not available	Qwen3.6-27BNot available	A complete latency comparison is not available.
Context windowmaximum listed tokens	Qwen3 235B 2507128K	Qwen3.6-27B262K	Qwen3.6-27B lists the larger context window.

Benchmark Deep Dive

Agentic

10 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
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
τ²-bench resultsSource	—	94.2%	Not comparable
GDPval-AASource	—	32.0%	Not comparable
GDPval-AASource	—	1140	Not comparable
Gert LabsSource	—	54.84%	Not comparable

Coding

8 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
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

2 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
AA-LCRSource	—	68.7%	Not comparable
CritPtSource	—	1.1%	Not comparable

KnowledgeQwen3 235B 2507 wins

12 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
GPQASource	77.5%	87.8%	Qwen3.6-27B leads
SuperGPQASource	62.6%	66%	Qwen3.6-27B leads
MMLU-ProSource	83%	86.2%	Qwen3.6-27B leads
MMLU-ReduxSource	—	93.5%	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

5 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
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

Multilingual

1 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
MMLU-ProXSource	79.4%	—	Not comparable

Multimodal

16 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	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

Inst. Following

1 benchmarks

Benchmark	Qwen3 235B 2507	Qwen3.6-27B	Result
AA-IFBenchSource	—	67.6%	Not comparable

Frequently Asked Questions (2)

Which is better, Qwen3 235B 2507 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3 235B 2507 is ahead on BenchLM's BenchAlign leaderboard, 56.02 to 53.82. The biggest single separator in this matchup is GPQA, where the scores are 77.5% and 87.8%.

Which is better for knowledge tasks, Qwen3 235B 2507 or Qwen3.6-27B?

Qwen3 235B 2507 has the edge for knowledge tasks in this comparison, averaging 78.9 versus 53.3. 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.

Qwen3 235B 2507

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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