DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (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.
Clear winner
Verdict
Pick DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max)
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max): 67.3% less intelligence, 64.7% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 140.9% slower end-to-end.
| Metric | DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 34.3 | 11.2 | −67.3% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 67.3% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $199.63 | $328.86 | +64.7% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 64.7% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 17.94s | 43.21s | +140.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 140.9% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.14 / $0.28 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh) scores 41.20 for $158.
- 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 0731 (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-flash/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/deepseek-v4-flash/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill