Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro). Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Based on current benchmark, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
Choose Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 2 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro).
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-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-Thinking-2507 specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 specifies output context (131,072 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
Qwen2 72B Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-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-Thinking-2507 was released on 2025-07-25.
Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 is 12 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Jul 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Jul 25, 2025
1.1 years ago
1.0yr newerKnowledge 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 Qwen2 72B Instruct and Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507 side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3-235B-A22B-Thinking-2507.