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LFM2.5-VL-3B vs Qwen3.5-9B

Qwen3.5-9B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

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

Which is better?

LFM2.5-VL-3B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.5-9B is better at 3 benchmarks (BFCL-V4, IFBench, IFEval). Qwen3.5-9B 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 Qwen3.5-9B

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 3 shared benchmarks

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

LFM2.5-VL-3B
Liquid AI
Qwen3.5-9B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Benchmark wins
0 of 3
3 of 3
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
—
Released
Aug 2026
Mar 2026
License
LFM Open License v1.0
Apache 2.0

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

3 benchmarks

LFM2.5-VL-3B outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3.5-9B is better at 3 benchmarks (BFCL-V4, IFBench, IFEval).

Qwen3.5-9B 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

5.9B diff

Qwen3.5-9B has 5.9B more parameters than LFM2.5-VL-3B, making it 188.1% larger.

Liquid AI
LFM2.5-VL-3B
3.1Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-9B
9.0Bparameters
3.1B
LFM2.5-VL-3B
9.0B
Qwen3.5-9B

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Both LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3.5-9B 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

Qwen3.5-9B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LFM2.5-VL-3B is licensed under LFM Open License v1.0, while Qwen3.5-9B 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

Qwen3.5-9B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LFM2.5-VL-3B was released on 2026-08-12, while Qwen3.5-9B was released on 2026-03-02.

LFM2.5-VL-3B is 5 months newer than Qwen3.5-9B.

LFM2.5-VL-3B

Aug 12, 2026

1 weeks ago

5mo newer
Qwen3.5-9B

Mar 2, 2026

5 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 Qwen3.5-9B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

LFM2.5-VL-3B
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.5-9B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about LFM2.5-VL-3B vs Qwen3.5-9B.

Which is better, LFM2.5-VL-3B or Qwen3.5-9B?

Qwen3.5-9B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LFM2.5-VL-3B is made by Liquid AI and Qwen3.5-9B 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 Qwen3.5-9B in benchmarks?

LFM2.5-VL-3B scores DocVQA: 91.1%, POPE: 88.7%, RefCOCO-avg: 87.9%, TextVQA: 84.3%, OCRBench: 84.2%. Qwen3.5-9B scores IFEval: 91.5%, MMLU-Redux: 91.1%, C-Eval: 88.2%, MAXIFE: 83.4%, Global PIQA: 83.2%.

What are the main differences between LFM2.5-VL-3B and Qwen3.5-9B?

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 Qwen3.5-9B?

LFM2.5-VL-3B is developed by Liquid AI and Qwen3.5-9B is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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