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Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Max

Full profiles: Gemini 3.5 Flash (Google) and Qwen3.6 Max (Alibaba): every benchmark, price and rank.

Updated · Data from 10 sources

As of 2 Nov 2026, Gemini 3.5 Flash and Qwen3.6 Max are neck and neck on quality (62.5 vs 62.4 on the BenchLeader Index, inside the ±4.1 margin), and Qwen3.6 Max is 1.2× cheaper at $2.92 vs $3.38 per 1M tokens blended. Choose Gemini 3.5 Flash for knowledge (63 vs 60), coding (60 vs 56), and human preference (67 vs 65); choose Qwen3.6 Max for agents & tools (72 vs 63), maths (65 vs 58), and long context (65 vs 61).

Key facts (as of 2 Nov 2026)

  • Gemini 3.5 Flash scores 62.5 on the BenchLeader Index and Qwen3.6 Max scores 62.4 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash costs $3.38 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 2 Nov 2026).
  • Qwen3.6 Max costs $2.92 per 1M tokens blended (list price, 2 Nov 2026).
  • Of the 25 benchmarks both models have, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 19 (BenchLeader, 2 Nov 2026).
  • On Arena WebDev, Gemini 3.5 Flash is rated 1499 and Qwen3.6 Max 1482 (LMArena, as published by 2 Nov 2026).
Gemini 3.5 Flash benchmarks high Google Qwen3.6 Max benchmarks max AlibabaAdd a third model

Which to pick for…

The pick's numbers come first. Category scores on the BenchLeader scale (50 is the average model, 15 points one standard deviation). High confidence means a lead of half a standard deviation or more; under one point is called either.

Use casePickWhyConfidence
CodingGemini 3.5 Flash60 vs 56 category score; Arena WebDev 1499 vs 1482Medium
Agents & tool useQwen3.6 Max72 vs 63 category score; Terminal-Bench Hard 43.9% vs 40.9%High
MathsQwen3.6 Max65 vs 58 category score; Arena Maths 1476 vs 1497Medium
ReasoningQwen3.6 Max63 vs 61 category score; GPQA Diamond 87.4% vs 92.8%Medium
KnowledgeGemini 3.5 Flash63 vs 60 category score; SimpleQA Verified 66.2% vs 52.0%Medium
Long documentsQwen3.6 Max65 vs 61 category score; AA-LCR v1.1 80.7% vs 73.3%Medium
Following instructionsEither74 vs 75 category score; IFBench 76.3% vs 76.6%Either
Chat quality (human preference)Gemini 3.5 Flash67 vs 65 on Arena votesMedium
Lowest costEither$3.38 vs $2.96 per 1M blended; agentic coding session $0.126 vs $0.111–
High volume on a budgetNeither flagshipA smaller model is usually the better fit: Cheapest good LLMs, Fastest LLMs–

Key differences

  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) and Qwen3.6 Max (max) are neck and neck on quality (62.5 vs 62.4, within the ±4.1 margin).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) is stronger in coding, human preference, knowledge, multimodal.
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max) is stronger in agents & tools, instruction following, long context, maths, reasoning.
  • They cost about the same ($2.96 per 1M blended).

At a glance

SpecGemini 3.5 FlashQwen3.6 Max
DeveloperGoogleAlibaba
Released19 May 202620 Apr 2026
Context window (tokens)1,048,576245,800
Compared atGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Open weightsNoNo
Price in / out / cached input per 1M$1.50 / $9.00 / $0.150$1.32 / $7.90 / $0.132

Category by category

Category scores on the BenchLeader scale: 50 is the average evaluated model, 15 points is one standard deviation. A gap under one point is called level.

CategoryGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)Leader
Reasoning61.062.7Qwen3.6 Max
Coding59.656.3Gemini 3.5 Flash
Agents & tools63.472.1Qwen3.6 Max
Maths58.164.7Qwen3.6 Max
Knowledge63.460.0Gemini 3.5 Flash
Instruction following74.374.6level
Human preference66.764.6Gemini 3.5 Flash
Multimodal66.3–not comparable
Long context61.465.2Qwen3.6 Max

On one chart

Each domain on the index's own scale, where 50 is an average model. Click a domain to see the benchmarks behind it. Pick up to 5 models from the list.

2550 avg75ReasoningCodingAgents & toolsMathsKnowledgeInstructionfollowingLong contextHumanpreferenceGemini 3.5 Flash, Reasoning: 61.0Gemini 3.5 Flash, Coding: 59.6Gemini 3.5 Flash, Agents & tools: 63.4Gemini 3.5 Flash, Maths: 58.1Gemini 3.5 Flash, Knowledge: 63.4Gemini 3.5 Flash, Instruction following: 74.3Gemini 3.5 Flash, Long context: 61.4Gemini 3.5 Flash, Human preference: 66.7Qwen3.6 Max, Reasoning: 62.7Qwen3.6 Max, Coding: 56.3Qwen3.6 Max, Agents & tools: 72.1Qwen3.6 Max, Maths: 64.7Qwen3.6 Max, Knowledge: 60.0Qwen3.6 Max, Instruction following: 74.6Qwen3.6 Max, Long context: 65.2Qwen3.6 Max, Human preference: 64.6

Not drawn, measured for fewer than two of these models: Multimodal.

ModelIndex

Where sources disagree

Across the 25 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 19, Qwen3.6 Max leads 6. Every overall index that rates both puts Gemini 3.5 Flash ahead.

Overall indexGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)Leader
BenchLeader Index62.562.4neck and neck
Arena Text14781460Gemini 3.5 Flash

Each publisher runs its own tasks, harnesses and effort settings, so their overall verdicts can differ; BenchLeader reconciles them on one scale. † measured at another effort setting of the same model (the publisher did not test the one compared here).

Price, speed and latency

List prices blended at three input tokens per output token. Per-task prices use the token counts on the methodology page. Cost, tokens and time per benchmark task are measured: Artificial Analysis’ averages over its whole Intelligence Index run.

MeasureGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Blended price per 1M tokens$3.38$2.96
Input / output per 1M$1.50 / $9.00$1.32 / $7.90
Cached input per 1M$0.150$0.132
Price per task: chat reply$0.0033$0.0029
Price per task: summarize a 30-page report$0.023$0.021
Price per task: code edit$0.022$0.020
Price per task: agentic coding session$0.126$0.111
Price per task: structured extraction$0.0048$0.0042
Agentic coding session, input mostly cached$0.065$0.057
Output speed190 tok/s–
Time to first answer16.6 s–
Time to a complete answer19.3 s–

Each model is compared at its best-ranked reasoning-effort setting. Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) scores 62.5 and takes 17 s to its first answer token; Gemini 3.5 Flash (medium) scores 61.9 in 14 s, Gemini 3.5 Flash (minimal) scores 55.7 in 1 s. Qwen3.6 Max (max) scores 62.4. Higher effort means more thinking before the answer: better scores, longer waits and more tokens billed. How reasoning effort changes scores and cost.

Every benchmark

106 benchmarks, grouped by category; each name links to the board and its leaders. † measured at another effort setting of the same model, shown for reference and not counted as a win.

MetricPublisherGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
BenchLeader IndexBenchLeader62.562.4
Agents & tools scoreBenchLeader63.472.1
Coding scoreBenchLeader59.656.3
Human preference scoreBenchLeader66.764.6
Instruction following scoreBenchLeader74.374.6
Knowledge scoreBenchLeader63.460.0
Long context scoreBenchLeader61.465.2
Maths scoreBenchLeader58.164.7
Multimodal scoreBenchLeader66.3–
Reasoning scoreBenchLeader61.062.7
Blended price $/MBenchLeader$3.38$2.96
Output speedBenchLeader190 tok/s–
Time to first answerBenchLeader16.6 s–
Context windowBenchLeader1,048,576 tokens245,800 tokens
Reasoning
GPQA DiamondEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub92.8%87.4%
SimpleBenchSimpleBench76.7%†63.0%
Arena Hard PromptsArena (LMArena)14951482
LiveBench 1.0 ReasoningLiveBench82.0%–
GPQA Diamond (AA)Artificial Analysis92.2%88.8%
Humanity's Last Exam (AA)Artificial Analysis42.7%30.8%
GPQA Diamond (Vals)Vals AI92.7%–
EnigmaEvalScale AI SEAL25.4%–
ARC-AGI-1ARC Prize92.5%–
ARC-AGI-2ARC Prize72.1%–
CritPtArtificial Analysis13.1%3.7%
Chess PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub45.0%–
Mystery Game PuzzlesEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub32.0%19.0%†
LMCAEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub47.1%42.5%
DTBenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub94.7%87.2%
ForecastBenchForecastBench64.4%†–
Coding
SWE-bench Verified (Epoch)Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub79.3%76.7%
SciCodeSciCode53.9%–
WeirdMLWeirdML62.6%–
Arena CodingArena (LMArena)15081511
Arena WebDevArena (LMArena)14991482
LiveBench 1.0 CodingLiveBench78.2%–
LiveCodeBenchVals AI87.6%–
SWE-bench (Vals)Vals AI78.8%72.8%
Code MigrationVals AI26.8%–
Show all 106 benchmarks
MetricPublisherGemini 3.5 Flash (high)Qwen3.6 Max (max)
Coding
ProgramBenchVals AI0.0%–
Vibe Code Bench v1.1Vals AI48.7%–
Surface Evolver BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub58.1%†–
DeepSWE v1.1Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub36.1%–
ALE-BenchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub911.0–
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (AA)Artificial Analysis6.6%–
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (AA)Artificial Analysis78.7%–
GameBench 2 OverallDuelLab GameBench 251.1†–
GameBench 2 by reasoning settingDuelLab GameBench 264.1–
Agents & tools
APEX-AgentsMercor27.5%†–
LiveBench Agentic CodingLiveBench49.0%–
Terminal-Bench HardArtificial Analysis40.9%43.9%
τ²-Bench Telecom (AA)Artificial Analysis95.3%95.9%
Terminal-Bench 2.1 (Vals)Vals AI74.2%–
MCP AtlasScale AI SEAL83.6%–
HiL-BenchScale AI SEAL27.7%†–
τ³-Banking (AA)Artificial Analysis32.2%–
ITBench SRE (AA)Artificial Analysis40.4%–
Analyst Agent (AA)Artificial Analysis45.0%–
APEX-Agents (AA)Artificial Analysis47.0%–
Finance Agent v2Vals AI57.9%–
Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1Vals AI2.5%–
Legal Research BenchVals AI30.8%–
SkillsBenchVals AI52.7%–
Tax Agent BenchVals AI21.6%–
Terminal-Bench 2.0 (Vals)Vals AI67.4%51.7%
Terminal-Bench 4.0 (Vals)Vals AI6.1%–
Terminal-Bench ScienceVals AI5.7%–
Web Search IndexVals AI37.0%–
GBAEvalEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub6.7%†–
Vending-Bench 2Andon Labs5396.4†4254.2
AutomationBenchArtificial Analysis42.1%–
GDP.pdf (AA)Artificial Analysis19.8%–
EnterpriseOps-GymArtificial Analysis50.1%–
AA-Briefcase v1.1Artificial Analysis875–
FACTS SearchGoogle64.3%†–
Maths
FrontierMath Tiers 1–3Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub62.8%–
FrontierMath Tier 4Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub26.8%–
OTIS Mock AIMEEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub95.6%91.1%
ProofBenchVals AI31.0%–
LiveBench MathematicsLiveBench88.2%–
AIME 2026MathArena95.0%†–
HMMT February 2026MathArena95.5%†–
MathArena ApexMathArena32.3%†–
Arena MathsArena (LMArena)14971476
Knowledge
SimpleQA VerifiedEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub66.2%52.0%
LiveBench 1.0 Data AnalysisLiveBench64.9%–
MMLU-ProVals AI89.5%–
LegalBenchVals AI83.6%–
CorpFinVals AI64.7%66.5%
TaxEvalVals AI74.4%–
CaseLaw v2Vals AI–47.9%
Excel Modeling BenchmarkVals AI63.5%–
MedCodeVals AI55.8%–
MedScribeVals AI76.6%–
Public Benefits Bench v1.1Vals AI59.5%–
DrugDiscoveryBenchScale AI SEAL50.0%–
EBR-benchEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub4.8%–
GDP.pdfEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub14.0%†–
Instruction following
LiveBench LanguageLiveBench84.6%–
LiveBench Instruction FollowingLiveBench75.6%–
IFBenchArtificial Analysis76.3%76.6%
Arena Instruction FollowingArena (LMArena)14651451
Human preference
Arena TextArena (LMArena)14781460
EQ-Bench 4EQ-Bench1077†–
Arena Creative WritingArena (LMArena)14651437
Arena Multi-turnArena (LMArena)14801467
Arena Longer QueriesArena (LMArena)14821473
Multimodal
Arena VisionArena (LMArena)1308–
MMMU-ProArtificial Analysis84.3%–
MMMU-Pro (Vals)Vals AI88.3%–
MortgageTaxVals AI68.1%–
Blueprint-Bench 2Epoch AI Benchmarking Hub33.6%†–
Long context
AA-LCR v1.1Artificial Analysis73.3%80.7%
Arena DocumentArena (LMArena)1453–
MLCRArtificial Analysis10.0%–
Composite
Epoch Capabilities IndexEpoch AI Benchmarking Hub155.0†149.4
LiveBench 1.0LiveBench74.6%–
AA Intelligence Index v4.3.2Artificial Analysis32.628.4
AA Progress Index v1Artificial Analysis305.1297.1
Vals Multimodal IndexVals AI62.9%–

Data as of 2026-11-02. Best configuration of each model; every score links to its source on the model pages.

DuelLab GameBench 2, release gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9 (https://benchmarks.duellab.org/releases/gb2-20261026-cb69502a12d9/), CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Scores mapped to BenchLeader model names; not endorsed by DuelLab.

What changed

  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): BenchLeader Index 63.2 → 62.6.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max): 1 new result (AA Progress Index v1).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): cost per task moved from $3.69/M to $2.98/M (19% down).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 new result (Harvey's Legal Agent Benchmark v1).
  • Qwen3.6 Max (max): BenchLeader Index 63.3 → 62.8.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 3 new results (GDPval-AA v2.1, normalised score, AA-Omniscience v1.1: accuracy, AA-Omniscience v1.1: non-hallucination).
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 1 score revision.
  • Gemini 3.5 Flash (high): 2 score revisions.

Rankings: Best LLM overall · Best LLM for agents · Best cheap LLMs

Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Max: questions

Is Gemini 3.5 Flash better than Qwen3.6 Max?
Gemini 3.5 Flash (high) and Qwen3.6 Max (max) are neck and neck on quality (62.5 vs 62.4, within the ±4.1 margin). The BenchLeader Index combines every independent quality benchmark; the two are within the margin of error as of 2 Nov 2026, so check the category scores for your use.
Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Max: which is cheaper, and will that change?
Qwen3.6 Max is cheaper today: $2.92 against $3.38 per million tokens, blended at three input tokens per output token. No price change has been announced for either.
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Max better for coding?
Gemini 3.5 Flash scores higher in coding (60 vs 56 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Arena WebDev, the top shared coding benchmark, it is 1499 for Gemini 3.5 Flash against 1482 for Qwen3.6 Max.
Is Gemini 3.5 Flash or Qwen3.6 Max better for agents and tool use?
Qwen3.6 Max scores higher in agentic tasks (72 vs 63 on the category index, where 50 is average). On Terminal-Bench Hard, the top shared agents & tools benchmark, it is 40.9% for Gemini 3.5 Flash against 43.9% for Qwen3.6 Max.
Which is better for long documents?
Qwen3.6 Max scores higher on long-context benchmarks (65 vs 61). Gemini 3.5 Flash accepts more context: 1,048,576 against 245,800 tokens for Qwen3.6 Max.
More questions (2)
Do independent benchmarks agree on Gemini 3.5 Flash vs Qwen3.6 Max?
Across the 25 benchmarks both have, Gemini 3.5 Flash leads 19, Qwen3.6 Max leads 6. Every overall index that rates both puts Gemini 3.5 Flash ahead.
When was Gemini 3.5 Flash released?
Gemini 3.5 Flash was released on 19 May 2026.