DeepSeek V3 0324 vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V3 0324 by DeepSeek or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) scores 1.5 points higher (11.2 vs 9.7) but costs 17× as much to run the benchmark ($329 vs $19.9; mid-range vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 9.7, and DeepSeek V3 0324 when 9.7 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V3 0324 | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 9.7 | 11.2 | +15.5% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 15.5% more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $19.87 | $328.86 | +1555.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 17× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 4.35s | 43.82s | +907.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 907.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.24 / $0.90 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V3 0324: 15.5% more intelligence, 1555.1% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 907.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V3 0324 is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
DeepSeek V3 0324Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v3-0324/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill