DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-25.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) scores 28.3 points higher (39.5 vs 11.2) but costs 2.0× as much to run the benchmark ($672 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) when the extra intelligence is worth the premium, otherwise Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning).
| Metric | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.5 | 11.2 | −71.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 71.6% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $671.96 | $328.86 | −51.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 51.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.00s | 43.21s | +188.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 188.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.29 / $1.20 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max): 71.6% less intelligence, 51.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 188.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
Compare something else
Agents:
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill