Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) vs Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) by Google or Qwen3.5 397B A17B (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
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) scores 9.5 points higher (18.4 vs 8.9) but costs 64× as much to run the benchmark ($941 vs $14.7; premium vs budget cost classes). They are not alternatives at one budget: pick Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) when you need intelligence above 8.9, and Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) when 8.9 is enough.
| Metric | Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) | Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 8.9 | 18.4 | +106.7% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 2.1× more intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $14.68 | $940.97 | +6309.9% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 64× more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 57.75s | 64.76s | +12.1% Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Re… is 12.1% slower |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.02 / $0.10 | $0.60 / $3.60 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image, Speech, Video | Text, Image |
Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) vs Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning): 106.7% more intelligence, 6309.9% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 12.1% slower end-to-end.
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6 Luna (Low) scores 21.50 for $10.6.
- Qwen3.5 397B A17B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, GPT-6.1 Sol (Xhigh) scores 51.00 for $662.
Gemma 4 E4B (Reasoning)Qwen3.5 397B A17B (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/gemma-4-e4b/qwen3-5-397b-a17b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gemma-4-e4b/qwen3-5-397b-a17b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill