Model Comparison

Mercury 2 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Comparing Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Verdict: Mercury 2 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct — which is better?

Mercury 2 (by Inception) and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Choose Mercury 2 if…

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

Choose Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

No common benchmarks found

Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instructdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Mercury 2 specifies input context (128,000 tokens). Only Mercury 2 specifies output context (8,192 tokens).

Inception
Mercury 2
Input128,000 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Mon Jul 13 2026 • llm-stats.com

License

Usage and distribution terms

Mercury 2 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct uses Apache 2.0.

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

Mercury 2

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Mercury 2 was released on 2026-02-24, while Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct was released on 2025-01-31.

Mercury 2 is 13 months newer than Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.

Mercury 2

Feb 24, 2026

4 months ago

1.1yr newer
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

Jan 31, 2025

1.4 years 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→

Key Takeaways

Inception
Larger context window (128,000 tokens)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Mercury 2
✓ Preferred
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
Inception
Mercury 2
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Mercury 2 vs Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct.

Which is better, Mercury 2 or Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Mercury 2 (Inception) and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Mercury 2 compare to Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct in benchmarks?

Mercury 2 scores AIME 2025: 91.1%, GPQA: 74.0%, IFBench: 71.0%, LiveCodeBench: 67.0%, Tau2 Airline: 53.0%. Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct scores TAU-bench Retail: 77.5%, SWE-Bench Verified: 69.6%, BFCL-v3: 68.7%, Aider-Polyglot: 61.8%, TAU-bench Airline: 60.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Mercury 2 supports 128K tokens and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Key differences include licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Mercury 2 and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct?

Mercury 2 is developed by Inception and Qwen3-Coder 480B A35B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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