Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MMLU), while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro). Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of 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 VL 4B Thinking
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 2 of 3 shared benchmarks
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 1 benchmarks (MMLU), while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is better at 2 benchmarks (GPQA, MMLU-Pro).
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking shows notably better performance in the majority of benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Playground indexes and blind preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen2 72B Instruct has 68.0B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking, making it 1700.0% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking specifies output context (262,144 tokens).
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
Qwen2 72B Instruct
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking
License
Usage and distribution terms
Qwen2 72B Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking 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 VL 4B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.
Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking is 14 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Jul 23, 2024
2.1 years ago
Sep 22, 2025
11 months ago
1.2yr 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 VL 4B Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Qwen2 72B Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 4B Thinking.