LFM3-1.7B vs Qwen3.5-9B
LFM3-1.7B and Qwen3.5-9B are closely matched at 25.0 and 23.9 on the LLM Stats Score.
Liquid AI · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
LFM3-1.7B and Qwen3.5-9B are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 25.0 and 23.9.
In the 6 individual benchmarks reported for both models, LFM3-1.7B wins 4; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose LFM3-1.7B
- your work emphasizes agents — it leads those capability indexes
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 6 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Oct 2026
Choose Qwen3.5-9B
- you want predictable pricing at $0.10/M input and $0.15/M output
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
20 reported for LFM3-1.7B · 25 for Qwen3.5-9B
LFM3-1.7B outperforms in 4 benchmarks (BFCL-V4, IFBench, IFEval, LiveCodeBench v6), while Qwen3.5-9B is better at 2 benchmarks (AA-LCR, GPQA).
LFM3-1.7B shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3.5-9B has 7.3B more parameters than LFM3-1.7B, making it 420.2% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3.5-9B specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3.5-9B specifies output context (262,144 tokens).
Input capabilities
Documented input modalities across available providers
Qwen3.5-9B supports multimodal inputs, whereas LFM3-1.7B does not.
Qwen3.5-9B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
LFM3-1.7B
Qwen3.5-9B
License
Usage and distribution terms
LFM3-1.7B 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.
LFM Open License v1.0
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
LFM3-1.7B was released on 2026-10-27, while Qwen3.5-9B was released on 2026-03-02.
LFM3-1.7B is 8 months newer than Qwen3.5-9B.
Oct 27, 2026
1 weeks ago
7mo newerMar 2, 2026
8 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against LFM3-1.7B and Qwen3.5-9B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about LFM3-1.7B vs Qwen3.5-9B.