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Qwen4-Max-Preview vs Step-3.5-Flash

Comparing Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash across benchmarks, pricing, and capabilities.

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team · StepFun · Updated for 2026

Which is better?

Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash trade strengths across price, capabilities, and technical limits. The better choice depends on the workload.

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

Choose Qwen4-Max-Preview

  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Nov 2026

Choose Step-3.5-Flash

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

At a glance

The differences that matter most.

Qwen4-Max-Preview
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Step-3.5-Flash
StepFun
Benchmark wins
—
—
Input price
— / M
$0.10 / M
Output price
— / M
$0.40 / M
Context window
—
65,536

Individual benchmarks

0 reported for Qwen4-Max-Preview · 7 for Step-3.5-Flash

No common benchmarks found

Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flashdon't have any common benchmark datasets to compare. They may have been evaluated on different testing suites.

Human preference

Blind head-to-head votes and playground preference scores

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Step-3.5-Flash specifies input context (65,536 tokens). Only Step-3.5-Flash specifies output context (8,192 tokens).

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen4-Max-Preview
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
StepFun
Step-3.5-Flash
Input65,536 tokens
Output8,192 tokens
Fri Nov 13 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input capabilities

Documented input modalities across available providers

Qwen4-Max-Preview supports multimodal inputs, whereas Step-3.5-Flash does not.

Qwen4-Max-Preview can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Step-3.5-Flash

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Qwen4-Max-Preview is licensed under a proprietary license, while Step-3.5-Flash uses Apache 2.0.

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

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Proprietary

Closed source

Step-3.5-Flash

Apache 2.0

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Qwen4-Max-Preview was released on 2026-11-11, while Step-3.5-Flash was released on 2026-02-02.

Qwen4-Max-Preview is 9 months newer than Step-3.5-Flash.

Qwen4-Max-Preview

Nov 11, 2026

1 days ago

9mo newer
Step-3.5-Flash

Feb 2, 2026

9 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?

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Qwen4-Max-Preview
✓ Preferred
Step-3.5-Flash
Open in Playground

FAQ

Common questions about Qwen4-Max-Preview vs Step-3.5-Flash.

Which is better, Qwen4-Max-Preview or Step-3.5-Flash?

Qwen4-Max-Preview (Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) and Step-3.5-Flash (StepFun) each have strengths in different areas. Compare their benchmark scores, pricing, context windows, and capabilities above to determine which fits your needs.

How does Qwen4-Max-Preview compare to Step-3.5-Flash in benchmarks?

Step-3.5-Flash scores AIME 2025: 97.3%, Tau-bench: 88.2%, LiveCodeBench v6: 86.4%, IMO-AnswerBench: 85.4%, SWE-Bench Verified: 74.4%.

What are the context window sizes for Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash?

Qwen4-Max-Preview supports an unknown number of tokens and Step-3.5-Flash supports 66K tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs Apache 2.0). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Qwen4-Max-Preview and Step-3.5-Flash?

Qwen4-Max-Preview is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team and Step-3.5-Flash is developed by StepFun.

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