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Grok 4.6 vs Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Comparing Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

xAI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Grok 4.6

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Aug 2026

Choose Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Grok 4.6
xAI
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
$2.00 / M
— / M
Output price
$6.00 / M
— / M
Context window
500,000
—
Released
Aug 2026
Aug 2024
License
Proprietary
tongyi-qianwen

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instructdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Grok 4.6 specifies input context (500,000 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.6
Input500,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Tue Aug 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Grok 4.6

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok 4.6 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Grok 4.6

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.6 was released on 2026-08-12, while Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct was released on 2024-08-29.

Grok 4.6 is 24 months newer than Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Grok 4.6

Aug 12, 2026

1 weeks ago

2.0yr newer
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Aug 29, 2024

2.0 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok 4.6 has a knowledge cutoff of 2026-02-01, while Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a cutoff of 2023-06-30.

Grok 4.6 has more recent training data (up to 2026-02-01), making it potentially better informed about events through that date compared to Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct (2023-06-30).

Grok 4.6

Feb 2026

2.7 yr newer
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Jun 2023

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.6
✓ Preferred
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.6 vs Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Which is better, Grok 4.6 or Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Grok 4.6 (xAI) and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Grok 4.6 compare to Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct in benchmarks?

Grok 4.6 scores CursorBench v3.2: 69.9%, DeepSWE 1.1: 65.9%, FrontierCode: 61.3%, AA-Index: 61.0%, GDPval-AA: 58.4%. Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.5%, VCR_en_easy: 91.9%, ChartQA: 88.3%, OCRBench: 87.7%, MMBench: 86.5%.

What are the context window sizes for Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Grok 4.6 supports 500K tokens and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Key differences include licensing (Proprietary vs tongyi-qianwen). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.6 and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct?

Grok 4.6 is developed by xAI and Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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