Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) by Google or Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) by Alibaba? Intelligence, total benchmark cost, and end-to-end time from Artificial Analysis & other sources, snapshot 2026-10-24.
Trade-off
Verdict
Depends on your budget
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) scores 28.6 points higher (39.8 vs 11.2) but costs 3.3× as much to run the benchmark ($1100 vs $329; premium vs mid-range cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) when you need intelligence above 11.2, and Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) when 11.2 is enough.
| Metric | Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 39.8 | 11.2 | −71.9% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 71.9% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $1,100.06 | $328.86 | −70.1% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 70.1% cheaper |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | Not reported | 43.21s | — not comparable |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.75 / $3.75 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image, Video |
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium): 71.9% less intelligence, 70.1% less cost to run the AA benchmark, and end-to-end time not fully reported.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Max) scores 51.80 for $1082.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
Gemini 3.8 Flash (Medium)Qwen3.5 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/gemini-3-8-flash-medium/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemini-3-8-flash-medium/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill