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Qwen3 Max Thinking vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B leads the LLM Stats Score 38.3 to 32.6. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is 2.2x cheaper per token.

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

Which is better?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B leads the overall LLM Stats Score 38.3 to 32.6, ranking #82 overall.

In the 31 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B wins 26; this is a narrower head-to-head signal than the composite indexes.

On price, Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is roughly 2.2x cheaper per token on a blended 3:1 input/output basis, which adds up quickly at production volume.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B also accepts a larger context window (262,144 input tokens), making it the stronger choice for long documents and large codebases.

Based on current LLM Stats indexes, shared benchmarks, pricing, and model metadata for 2026.

Choose Qwen3 Max Thinking

  • you want predictable pricing at $1.20/M input and $6.00/M output

Choose Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

  • overall performance matters — it scores 38.3 and ranks #82 on LLM Stats
  • your work emphasizes reasoning and agents — it leads those capability indexes
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 26 of 31 exact shared results
  • cost matters — it's about 2.2x cheaper per token
  • you process long inputs — it offers a 262,144 token context window
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Feb 2026
  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Qwen3 Max Thinking
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Core performance indexes
LLM Stats Score
32.6
#125
38.3
#82
Reasoning
33.7
#113
38.2
#80
Coding
16.0
#147
22.8
#95
Agents
9.9
#142
19.8
#83
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
5 of 31
26 of 31
Input price
$1.20 / M
$0.45 / M
Output price
$6.00 / M
$3.00 / M
Context window
256,000
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

6 shared
Index
Qwen3 Max Thinking
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Math
31.6#71
36.5#39
Tool use
3.2#184
16.7#91
Long context
19.7#33
23.3#17
Research
11.2#52
18.8#29
Finance
32.7#12
38.9#2
1 more shared indexes
Legal
32.7#12
38.9#4
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

34 reported for Qwen3 Max Thinking · 38 for Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

31 shared

Qwen3 Max Thinking outperforms in 5 benchmarks (AIME 2026, C-Eval, IFEval, IMO-AnswerBench, LiveCodeBench v6), while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is better at 24 benchmarks (BFCL-V4, BrowseComp, BrowseComp-zh, DeepPlanning, Global PIQA, GPQA, IFBench, LongBench v2, MAXIFE, MCP-Mark, MMLU-Pro, MMLU-Redux, MMMLU, Multi-Challenge, NOVA-63, SecCodeBench, SuperGPQA, SWE-bench Multilingual, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0, Toolathlon, VITA-Bench, WideSearch, WMT24++).

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sat Oct 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Pricing Analysis

Price comparison per million tokens

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B costs less

For input processing, Qwen3 Max Thinking ($1.20/1M tokens) is 2.7x more expensive than Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ($0.45/1M tokens).

For output processing, Qwen3 Max Thinking ($6.00/1M tokens) is 2.0x more expensive than Qwen3.5-397B-A17B ($3.00/1M tokens).

In conclusion, Qwen3 Max Thinking is more expensive than Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.*

* Using a 3:1 ratio of input to output tokens

Lowest available price from all providers
Sat Oct 24 2026 • llm-stats.com
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 Max Thinking
Input tokens$1.20
Output tokens$6.00
Best providerDeepinfra
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Input tokens$0.45
Output tokens$3.00
Best providerDeepinfra
Notice missing or incorrect data?

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

603.0B diff

Qwen3 Max Thinking has 603.0B more parameters than Qwen3.5-397B-A17B, making it 151.9% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 Max Thinking
1.0Tparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
397.0Bparameters
1000.0B
Qwen3 Max Thinking
397.0B
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B accepts 262,144 input tokens compared to Qwen3 Max Thinking's 256,000 tokens. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B can generate longer responses up to 262,144 tokens, while Qwen3 Max Thinking is limited to 256,000 tokens.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3 Max Thinking
Input256,000 tokens
Output256,000 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Input262,144 tokens
Output262,144 tokens
Sat Oct 24 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen3 Max Thinking does not.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Qwen3 Max Thinking

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen3 Max Thinking is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B uses Apache 2.0.

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

Qwen3 Max Thinking

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen3 Max Thinking was released on 2026-02-13, while Qwen3.5-397B-A17B was released on 2026-02-16.

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is 0 month newer than Qwen3 Max Thinking.

Qwen3 Max Thinking

Feb 13, 2026

8 months ago

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

Feb 16, 2026

8 months ago

3d newer

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.

Unable to compare the recency of their training data.

No cutoff dates available

Provider Availability

Qwen3 Max Thinking is available from DeepInfra. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is available from DeepInfra, Novita.

Qwen3 Max Thinking

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $1.20/1MOutput Price:Output: $6.00/1M

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B

deepinfra logo
Deepinfra
Input Price:Input: $0.45/1MOutput Price:Output: $3.00/1M
novita logo
Novita
Input Price:Input: $0.60/1MOutput Price:Output: $3.60/1M
* Prices shown are per million tokens

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen3 Max Thinking and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen3 Max Thinking
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.5-397B-A17B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen3 Max Thinking vs Qwen3.5-397B-A17B.

Which is better, Qwen3 Max Thinking or Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B leads the LLM Stats Score 38.3 to 32.6. Qwen3 Max Thinking is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B 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 Qwen3 Max Thinking compare to Qwen3.5-397B-A17B in benchmarks?

Qwen3 Max Thinking scores C-Eval: 93.7%, IFEval: 93.4%, AIME 2026: 93.3%, MMLU-Redux: 92.8%, GPQA: 87.4%. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B scores MMLU-Redux: 94.9%, HMMT 2025: 94.8%, C-Eval: 93.0%, HMMT25: 92.7%, IFEval: 92.6%.

Is Qwen3 Max Thinking cheaper than Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?

Qwen3.5-397B-A17B is 2.7x cheaper for input tokens. Qwen3 Max Thinking costs $1.20/M input and $6.00/M output via deepinfra. Qwen3.5-397B-A17B costs $0.45/M input and $3.00/M output via deepinfra.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen3 Max Thinking and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?

Qwen3 Max Thinking supports 256K tokens and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B supports 262K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Qwen3 Max Thinking and Qwen3.5-397B-A17B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (32.6 vs 38.3), context window (256K vs 262K), input pricing ($1.20 vs $0.45/M), multimodal support (no vs yes), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

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