LongCat-Flash-Lite vs Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct Comparison
Comparing LongCat-Flash-Lite and Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
LongCat-Flash-Lite outperforms in 3 benchmarks (AIME 2025, MMLU, MMLU-Pro), while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.
LongCat-Flash-Lite significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Pricing Analysis
Price comparison per million tokens
For input processing, LongCat-Flash-Lite ($0.10/1M tokens) costs the same as Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.10/1M tokens).
For output processing, LongCat-Flash-Lite ($0.40/1M tokens) is 1.5x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct ($0.60/1M tokens).
In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Lite.*
* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
LongCat-Flash-Lite has 64.5B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct, making it 1612.5% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to LongCat-Flash-Lite's 256,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while LongCat-Flash-Lite is limited to 128,000 tokens.
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Lite does not.
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
License
Usage and distribution terms
LongCat-Flash-Lite is licensed under MIT, 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.
MIT
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
LongCat-Flash-Lite was released on 2026-02-05, while Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.
LongCat-Flash-Lite is 5 months newer than Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct.
Feb 5, 2026
1 months ago
4mo newerSep 22, 2025
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.
Provider Availability
LongCat-Flash-Lite is available from Meituan. Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct is available from DeepInfra. The availability of providers can affect quality of the model and reliability.
LongCat-Flash-Lite
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
Qwen3 VL 4B Instruct
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Detailed Comparison
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