DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) vs Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) by DeepSeek or Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-26.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)
Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max): 53.9% less intelligence, 33.4% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 205.4% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max) | Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.5 | 18.2 | −53.9% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 53.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $671.96 | $896.39 | +33.4% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 33.4% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 15.37s | 46.94s | +205.4% Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reas… is 205.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.29 / $1.20 | $0.38 / $2.25 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
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.
- Qwen3.6 35B A3B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (Max)Qwen3.6 35B A3B (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-v4-1-flash/qwen3-6-35b-a3b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-1-flash/qwen3-6-35b-a3b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill