Model Comparison

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is 1.1x cheaper per token.

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Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (AIME 2025), while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 costs less

For input processing, LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 ($0.30/1M tokens) costs the same as Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct ($0.30/1M tokens).

For output processing, LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 ($1.20/1M tokens) is 1.2x cheaper than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct ($1.49/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is more expensive than LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.20
Best providerMeituan
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Input tokens$0.30
Output tokens$1.49
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue→

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

324.0B diff

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 has 324.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct, making it 137.3% larger.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
560.0Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
236.0Bparameters
560.0B
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
236.0B
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601's 128,000 tokens. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is limited to 128,000 tokens.

Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
Input128,000 tokens
Output128,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Thu Apr 16 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct supports multimodal inputs, whereas LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 does not.

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is licensed under MIT, while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

MIT

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 was released on 2026-01-14, while Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct was released on 2025-09-22.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is 4 months newer than Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

Jan 14, 2026

3 months ago

3mo newer
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

Sep 22, 2025

6 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

Provider Availability

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is available from Meituan. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is available from DeepInfra, Novita.

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601

meituan logo
Meituan
Input Price:Input: $0.30/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.20/1M

Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.30/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.49/1M
novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.30/1MOutput Price:Output: $1.50/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

Meituan
Less expensive output tokens
Higher AIME 2025 score (99.6% vs 74.7%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Larger context window (262,144 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs

Detailed Comparison

AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Meituan
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 vs Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct

LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is made by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 scores AIME 2025: 99.6%, Tau2 Telecom: 99.3%, Tau2 Retail: 88.6%, LiveCodeBench: 82.8%, GPQA: 80.5%. Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 97.1%, ScreenSpot: 95.4%, MMLU-Redux: 92.2%, OCRBench: 92.0%, MMBench-V1.1: 89.9%.
Both models cost $0.30 per million input tokens.
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 supports 128K tokens and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.
Key differences include context window (128K vs 262K), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (MIT vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.
LongCat-Flash-Thinking-2601 is developed by Meituan and Qwen3 VL 235B A22B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.