GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) vs Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning)
Which is better for the money: GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) by OpenAI or Qwen3.5 9B (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 GPT-5.6 Luna (Max)
Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) vs GPT-5.6 Luna (Max): 70.0% less intelligence, 2.8% more cost to run the AA benchmark, and 61.6% faster end-to-end.
| Metric | GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) | Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intelligence (higher is better) | 37.3 | 11.2 | −70.0% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 70.0% less intelligent |
| Total AA cost (lower is better) | $319.93 | $328.86 | +2.8% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 2.8% more expensive |
| End-to-end time (lower is better) | 114.06s | 43.82s | −61.6% Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is 61.6% faster |
| Price per 1M tokens (in / out) | $0.20 / $1.20 | $0.14 / $0.20 | |
| Input modalities | Text, Image | Text, Image, Video |
Today's Pareto frontier
Against the frontier
- GPT-5.6 Luna (Max) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
- Qwen3.5 9B (Reasoning) is off the frontier: at the same or lower cost, MiMo-V2.6-Pro scores 46.30 for $207.
GPT-5.6 Luna (Max)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/gpt-5-6-luna/qwen3-5-9b · Markdown: /api/v1/compare/gpt-5-6-luna/qwen3-5-9b?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill