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LFM2.5-VL-3B vs Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Liquid AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

LFM2.5-VL-3B outperforms in 1 benchmarks (RealWorldQA), while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is better at 10 benchmarks (BLINK, Hallusion Bench, MathVista-Mini, MMBench-V1.1, MMMU-Pro, MMMU (val), MMStar, MuirBench, OCRBench, OCRBench-V2 (en)). Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

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

Choose LFM2.5-VL-3B

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

Choose Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 11 of 12 shared benchmarks

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

LFM2.5-VL-3B
Liquid AI
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
1 of 12
11 of 12
Input price
— / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.60 / M
Context window
—
262,144
Released
Aug 2026
Sep 2025
License
LFM Open License v1.0
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

12 benchmarks

LFM2.5-VL-3B outperforms in 1 benchmarks (RealWorldQA), while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is better at 10 benchmarks (BLINK, Hallusion Bench, MathVista-Mini, MMBench-V1.1, MMMU-Pro, MMMU (val), MMStar, MuirBench, OCRBench, OCRBench-V2 (en)).

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Aug 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Playground indexes and blind preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

876.5M diff

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct has 0.9B more parameters than LFM2.5-VL-3B, making it 28.1% larger.

Liquid AI
LFM2.5-VL-3B
3.1Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
4.0Bparameters
3.1B
LFM2.5-VL-3B
4.0B
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct specifies output context (262,144 tokens).

Liquid AI
LFM2.5-VL-3B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Tue Aug 25 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct support multimodal inputs.

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

LFM2.5-VL-3B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LFM2.5-VL-3B is licensed under LFM Open License v1.0, while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

LFM2.5-VL-3B

LFM Open License v1.0

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LFM2.5-VL-3B was released on 2026-08-12, while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

LFM2.5-VL-3B is 11 months newer than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.

LFM2.5-VL-3B

Aug 12, 2026

1 weeks ago

10mo newer
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

11 months ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

LFM2.5-VL-3B
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about LFM2.5-VL-3B vs Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.

Which is better, LFM2.5-VL-3B or Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LFM2.5-VL-3B is made by Liquid AI and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does LFM2.5-VL-3B compare to Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct in benchmarks?

LFM2.5-VL-3B scores DocVQA: 91.1%, POPE: 88.7%, RefCOCO-avg: 87.9%, TextVQA: 84.3%, OCRBench: 84.2%. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 95.3%, ScreenSpot: 94.0%, OCRBench: 88.1%, MMBench-V1.1: 85.1%, AI2D: 84.1%.

What are the context window sizes for LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

LFM2.5-VL-3B supports an unknown number of tokens and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

Key differences include licensing (LFM Open License v1.0 vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct?

LFM2.5-VL-3B is developed by Liquid AI and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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