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Qwen3.6-27B vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Qwen3.6-27B leads the LLM Stats Score 35.7 to 32.5.

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

Which is better?

Qwen3.6-27B leads the overall LLM Stats Score 35.7 to 32.5, ranking #79 overall.

In the 35 individual benchmarks reported for both models, Qwen3.6-27B wins 31; 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 Qwen3.6-27B

  • overall performance matters — it scores 35.7 and ranks #79 on LLM Stats
  • you value its reported benchmark strengths — it wins 31 of 35 exact shared results
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Apr 2026

Choose Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

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

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Core performance indexes
35.7
#79
32.5
#97
36.3
#72
33.2
#89
25.9
#64
20.0
#94
16.1
#74
11.7
#97
Cost, coverage & limits
Benchmark wins
31 of 35
4 of 35
Input price
$0.60 / M
— / M
Output price
$3.60 / M
— / M
Context window
262,144

Capability indexes

Additional strengths measured across groups of related public benchmarks

5 shared
Index
Qwen3.6-27B
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
34.3#47
31.2#67
24.8#48
23.3#53
27.5#35
25.9#41
32.1#13
29.5#24
32.1#12
29.5#19
Conservative TrueSkill rating · higher is betterHow scores work

Individual benchmarks

44 reported for Qwen3.6-27B · 49 for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

35 shared

Qwen3.6-27B outperforms in 31 benchmarks (AIME 2026, C-Eval, CharXiv-R, Claw-Eval, EmbSpatialBench, GPQA, HMMT 2025, HMMT25, HMMT Feb 26, Humanity's Last Exam, IMO-AnswerBench, LiveCodeBench v6, MathVista-Mini, MLVU, MMLU-Pro, MMLU-Redux, MMMU, MMMU-Pro, MVBench, NL2Repo, RefCOCO-avg, RefSpatialBench, SkillsBench, SuperGPQA, SWE-bench Multilingual, SWE-Bench Pro, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0, VideoMME w sub., VideoMMMU, ZClawBench), while Qwen3.6-35B-A3B is better at 4 benchmarks (CC-OCR, MMBench-V1.1, RealWorldQA, SimpleVQA).

Qwen3.6-27B significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Tue Sep 08 2026 • llm-stats.com

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Model Size

Parameter count comparison

7.2B diff

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B has 7.2B more parameters than Qwen3.6-27B, making it 26.0% larger.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-27B
27.8Bparameters
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
35.0Bparameters
27.8B
Qwen3.6-27B
35.0B
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Qwen3.6-27B specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3.6-27B specifies output context (65,536 tokens).

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-27B
Input262,144 tokens
Output65,536 tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Tue Sep 08 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Both Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B support multimodal inputs.

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

Qwen3.6-27B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Both models are licensed under Apache 2.0.

Both models share the same licensing terms, providing consistent usage rights.

Qwen3.6-27B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen3.6-27B was released on 2026-04-21, while Qwen3.6-35B-A3B was released on 2026-04-16.

Qwen3.6-27B is 0 month newer than Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Qwen3.6-27B

Apr 21, 2026

4 months ago

5d newer
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Apr 16, 2026

4 months ago

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

Outputs Comparison

Notice missing or incorrect data?Start an Issue discussion

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen3.6-27B
✓ Preferred
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen3.6-27B vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B.

Which is better, Qwen3.6-27B or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-27B leads the LLM Stats Score 35.7 to 32.5. Qwen3.6-27B is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 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 Qwen3.6-27B compare to Qwen3.6-35B-A3B in benchmarks?

Qwen3.6-27B scores CountBench: 97.8%, VLMsAreBlind: 97.0%, V*: 94.7%, AIME 2026: 94.1%, HMMT 2025: 93.8%. Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scores MMLU-Redux: 93.3%, MMBench-V1.1: 92.8%, AI2D: 92.7%, AIME 2026: 92.7%, RefCOCO-avg: 92.0%.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-27B supports 262K tokens and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Qwen3.6-27B and Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Key differences include LLM Stats Score (35.7 vs 32.5). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.