Qwen2 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview
Qwen2 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview are closely matched at 5.8 and 9.0 on the LLM Stats Score.
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026
Which is better?
Qwen2 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview are closely matched on the overall LLM Stats Score at 5.8 and 9.0.
In the 1 individual benchmarks reported for both models, QwQ-32B-Preview wins 1; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.
Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.
Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct
- you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem
Choose QwQ-32B-Preview
- you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 1 of 1 exact shared results
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2024
At a glance
The differences that matter most.
Capability indexes
Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks
Individual benchmarks
17 reported for Qwen2 72B Instruct · 4 for QwQ-32B-Preview
Qwen2 72B Instruct outperforms in 0 benchmarks, while QwQ-32B-Preview is better at 1 benchmark (GPQA).
QwQ-32B-Preview significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.
Human preference
Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
Qwen2 72B Instruct has 39.5B more parameters than QwQ-32B-Preview, making it 121.5% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only QwQ-32B-Preview specifies input context (32,768 tokens). Only QwQ-32B-Preview specifies output context (32,768 tokens).
License
Usage and distribution terms
Qwen2 72B Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while QwQ-32B-Preview 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 QwQ-32B-Preview was released on 2024-11-28.
QwQ-32B-Preview is 4 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.
Jul 23, 2024
2.2 years ago
Nov 28, 2024
1.8 years ago
4mo newerKnowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
QwQ-32B-Preview has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2024-11-28, while Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.
We can confirm QwQ-32B-Preview's training data extends to 2024-11-28, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date.
—
Nov 2024
Outputs Comparison
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against Qwen2 72B Instruct and QwQ-32B-Preview side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
FAQ
Common questions about Qwen2 72B Instruct vs QwQ-32B-Preview.