Model Comparison
Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507Which is better in 2026?
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Verdict: Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 — which is better?
Qwen2 72B Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) and Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 (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.
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro, MultiPL-E). Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct if…
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
Choose Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 3 of 3 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2025
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 is better at 3 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro, MultiPL-E).
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 has 163.0B more parameters than Qwen2 72B Instruct, making it 226.4% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
Qwen2 72B Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
tongyi-qianwen
Open weights
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 was released on 2025-07-22.
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507 is 12 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Jul 23, 2024
1.9 years ago
Jul 22, 2025
10 months ago
12mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
Qwen2 72B Instruct
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
No standout differentiators in the data we have for this pair.
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Detailed Comparison
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FAQ
Common questions about Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B-Instruct-2507.