DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (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 Flash Vision (Max) scores 23.6 points higher (34.8 vs 11.2) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($1081 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.8 | 11.2 | −67.8% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 67.8% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,081.42 | $328.86 | −69.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 69.6% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 16.10s | 43.21s | +168.4% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 168.4% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.44 / $1.32 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (Max): 67.8% less intelligence, 69.6% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and 168.4% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash Vision (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 Flash Vision (Max)Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)Today's Pareto frontierOpen-weights frontierEvery other model
Matchup
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