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Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking leads the LLM Stats Score 23.6 to 14.3.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking leads the overall LLM Stats Score 23.6 to 14.3, ranking #173 overall.

In the 7 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking wins 4; 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-VL-72B-Instruct

  • you are already invested in the Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team ecosystem

Choose Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

  • overall performance matters — it scores 23.6 and ranks #173 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 4 of 7 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Sep 2025

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
14.3
#236
23.6
#173
Reasoning
11.6
#251
24.7
#153
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
3 of 7
4 of 7
Input price
— / M
— / M
Output price
— / M
— / M
Context window
—
—

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

2 shared
Index
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Vision
10.5#119
16.9#85
Multimodal
11.6#109
19.5#72
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

15 reported for Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct · 47 for Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

7 shared

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct outperforms in 3 benchmarks (DocVQAtest, MVBench, OCRBench), while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is better at 4 benchmarks (InfoVQAtest, MathVista-Mini, MMMU-Pro, RealWorldQA).

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking has a slight edge in benchmark performance.

Mon Sep 14 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

40.4B diff

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has 40.4B more parameters than Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking, making it 122.4% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
73.4Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
33.0Bparameters
73.4B
Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
33.0B
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking support multimodal inputs.

They are both capable of processing various types of data, offering versatility in application.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is licensed under tongyi-qianwen, while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking uses Apache 2.0.

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

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct was released on 2024-08-29, while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking was released on 2025-09-22.

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is 13 months newer than Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Aug 29, 2024

2.0 years ago

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

Sep 22, 2025

11 months ago

1.1yr newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2023-06-30, while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct's training data extends to 2023-06-30, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking's cutoff date.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct

Jun 2023

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking

—

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion→

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct
✓ Preferred
Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct vs Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking.

Which is better, Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?

Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking leads the LLM Stats Score 23.6 to 14.3. Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their capability indexes, individual benchmarks, pricing, and limits above.

How does Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct compare to Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking in benchmarks?

Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct scores DocVQAtest: 96.5%, VCR_en_easy: 91.9%, ChartQA: 88.3%, OCRBench: 87.7%, MMBench: 86.5%. Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking scores DocVQAtest: 96.1%, ScreenSpot: 95.7%, MMLU-Redux: 91.9%, MMBench-V1.1: 90.8%, CharXiv-D: 90.2%.

What are the main differences between Qwen2-VL-72B-Instruct and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (14.3 vs 23.6), licensing (tongyi-qianwen vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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